Children of the Molecule
by Chris Kenworthy
Summary: The Doctor and Rose drop by Roswell to meet some Crash aliens - and end up taking Max, Liz, and their friends in the TARDIS to take care of some business on alien worlds, like learning about their past and finding Max's daughter.
1. Chapter 1

Whoosh, Swoosh, wheeze, groan, vworp vworp.

In an empty alley of a nondescript American town, a small box appeared up against a wall. A british police-call box, actually, very old-fashioned as well as out of place in its new home. But then, this particular box was out of place just about anywhere it went, so much that nobody ever really thought about it much or paid any attention to it. The reason that it looked like a police-call box was because its chameleon disguise circuit had broken a long time ago.

Just how long a time ago would be a difficult question to answer.

The door of the 'box' opened and a blonde girl poked her head out. "Roswell, New Mexico, yah?" She spoke with a London accent, not quite the traditional Cockney but with hints of it. Though she was looking out at the alley, she had spoken to someone who was still 'inside the box' with her.

"Absolutely," her unseen compatriot answered her, also in a British accent, a bit closer to Received Pronunciation than the girl, maybe East-southeast if you thought about it, maybe a hint of a Scottish burr, but you couldn't be sure. "I've never been here before, but the readouts are clear. Intersection of the seventy/route three eighty five east-west, and the two sixty five north-south. Thirty-three point three degrees north of the equator, one hundred and four point five west of your Greenwish observatory. Roswell in the state of New Mexico. Pretty close to the center of town."

"Showoff, doctor," the girl muttered half under her breath, and stepped out into the alley, looking around more. She was wearing an elegant day dress with a long hem, tight about the waist, high heels, and her hair intricately curled. "It looks almost like some parts of town around home."

"It's not a particularly unique town, aside from the little claim to fame regarding the crash," the still-unseen man assured her. "Never has been. It was your idea to come here."

"Okay, okay, I didn't mean to complain," she said. "And you're sure that we can actually find some... some aliens here?"

"I told you I could, didn't I?" He made an appearance in the doorway then, a cheerful man, perhaps in his early thirties, wearing a brown suit that harmonized nicely with his ragged mop of hair, including the lock that fell down in the middle of his forehead. "Surely by now you've learned not to doubt me when I'm feeling confident!"

"Of course not, Doctor." She cocked her head slightly. "That's what you're wearing?"

"Well, yes. What, do you think I need something different?" He looked down at the suit.

"No, I suppose not - I'm so used to seeing you like that, but I suppose it does fit. I got all dressed up for the occasion and all, but... well, never mind. Where from here?"

"We should only be a few blocks from our first Roswell destination, Rose," the Doctor said, offering her his arm. "And I do think that you look fantastic like that, though I was a bit surprised that you went to so much trouble."

"Well, I did want to fit in, didn't I? Not like the time that I ended up in wartime London, with that horrible Union Jack t-shirt..."

He cocked his head. "I liked that T-shirt, and I thought you did too."

"Only before I ended up hanging from a barrage balloon with a big flag on my chest for the German pilots to spot - a _British_ flag." She sighed. "You cocked your head and smiled a bit, like there's something that you know and you hadn't realized I didn't know. What is it?"

"Umm... well..." Rather than answer Rose in words, the Doctor stepped out of the alley onto the sidewalk of a busy main street, and allowed the scene to speak for itself, taking a slightly tighter hold of Rose's arm.

She looked around at the selection of cars on the road - mostly aerodynamic sleek things. Modern japanese compacts mixed in with minivans and SUVs. A bus happened to stream by, with the billboard on its side advertising a website address. The building across the street had an electronic sign listing upcoming UFO convention events. Several of their fellow pedestrians were speaking on reasonably small cell phones.

"This... this isn't the late forties, or the early fifties," Rose accused the Doctor.

"I didn't say that it was! What gave you the impression that I'd be taking you to that timeframe?"

"Because... because I've done my research," she hissed at him, struggling vainly to free her arm, but feeling constrained not to make a scene in public. "The crash was in 1947. When you told me that you could take me to aliens in Roswell... what decade _is_ it? Eighties, no, the phones don't fit. Is this the twenty-first bloody century?"

"Yes, actually, but only just," he told her. "November of 2001, assuming that I didn't manage to muff the landing again, but everything seems to fit. My source of information was very clear - if I wanted to meet aliens in Roswell, this was the time to aim for. Actually, I don't have all the details, but I trust my old friend."

"Who was this old friend?" Rose asked, wrinkling her nose a bit.

"Never mind. Let's go on. It's down there." He pointed down the street.

"_No_! Come on - I've got to go, change. I can use my clothes from home, better than this..."

"Please don't," he said, softly, and both of them were so surprised that he let go of her arm, and the two of them looked at each other, staying still. "I mean, you can go back, if you really feel you must, but... you look wonderful like this, and nobody seems to really mind. Yes, you're dressed a bit old-fashioned, but so what? Do you really care so much what other people think, Rose?"

"Well, no, I suppose not," Rose muttered. She stepped down the sidewalk, away from the alley, and then hesitated, irresolute. "Not after the Victorian people, well... never mind. It's a bit different to be less modern than people in a modern time, anyway." She took one more step, and the Doctor hurried to catch up with her, offering his arm again, which she took with a smile. "So, it's what, three and a half years now, before we met among those mannequins?"

"I suppose."

"Oh, lord." Rose rolled her eyes. "Right now, I'm probably out late with Mickey, dressed up in some ridiculous punk getup. Me mum threatened to... well, never mind that. We - we've never gone anywhere this close to when we met, before, have we?"

"No, I suppose not. Just as long as you don't try to contact yourself or cross the Atlantic, we should be fine, though."

"Alright." Rose looked around. "So, I guess the reason I didn't expect Roswell in the twenty-first century, was - well, I didn't figure that there would really be aliens hanging around so long after the crash, without anybody noticing. Or getting found by the boys in black and carted away to Area 51 or wherever. Is Area 51 here in New Mexico? I always think of van Statten's bunker, though I know it isn't the same thing."

"No, it's in Nevada, and I don't think that they ever had any real aliens there, though they did take apart a few pieces of non-human tech," the Doctor said offhandedly.

"I hope we're not going there," Rose said, pointing at another building across the street, proclaiming itself 'The Official Roswell UFO Museum.'

"No, not yet at least. In here." The Doctor pointed at a storefront not far ahead of them, with a giant off-balance flying saucer hanging from its wall above the sidewalk. "The Crashdown Cafe. Perfect place to meet Roswell aliens, and apparently their Eclipse burger is something tasty too."

"Wha?" Rose stared, shook her head, and then looked over at her friend. "You're serious?"

"I never kid about burgers," he quipped, and hurried ahead to the doors underneath the flying saucer.

#

"Welcome to the Crashdown Cafe," a dark-haired waitress said, handing the two of them menus. The Doctor had chosen a table in the middle of the small dining room, even though Rose would have picked the only available booth if she'd been asked. He'd complimented her on how she looked in the outfit, so it'd be nice to have a slightly more intimate setting for their lunch - and plus, that way they could talk about certain things more privately. "Are you in town for the convention? Is that a theme outfit?"

"Hmm?" Rose blinked in surprise, not having expected that reaction. "Is it a what? What kind of theme?"

"Yes, in for the convention," the Doctor said calmly, smiling.

"Great," the waitress said. "Well, your clothes, Miss - they look a bit like late forties fashion, or something like that. The time period when the Crash happened - whatever it was that really came down. I didn't know if that was on purpose, or for some special event in particular. Didn't think that anybody was doing a costume ball this year..."

"Um, no, nothing in particular," she muttered. "Just - well, thought it'd be a lark."

"You're from England, right?" the waitress continued. Surprised, Rose nodded, and realized that the Doctor had signalled agreement as well. "Have you been living in the States a while, or flown directly over from there?"

"Err... not either, quite," the Doctor said, as Rose silently floundered. "We - we travel a lot. We only just got to America, this particular trip, but haven't been to the Isles in... um, what, two weeks or so? Please, no questions about just where we've been, though, it'd take a lot of explaining..."

"Oh, no, sorry sir, I didn't mean to bother you. Just - well, I'm interested about where our visitors come from, especially for events like the Convention. It's been a little slow this year, actually, in comparison with - you know."

"I'm sorry to hear that," the Doctor said. "And, I hope you don't mind - might I ask your name?"

"Oh, sure, sir. Liz Parker. My parents own and manage the Cafe, actually." She paused to give either of them a chance to ask something else. "Well, I'll be back in a few minutes for your orders - unless you're ready now?"

"Just a coffee for me, thanks," Rose said.

"You're not ready to take my word on the Eclipse burgers?" the Doctor pressed. Rose shrugged awkwardly. "Alright. Let's see... I will try the lemon herbal tea."

"That's a good one - my friend's mother supplies them," Liz volunteered. "Have you been here before, sir?"

"No, can't say that I have."

"How do you know about our Eclipse burgers, then?"

"A good friend," he said, with a smile and a nod. Liz took the hint and hurried off. Rose rolled her eyes and flicked her eyes over the whimsically named main dishes on he menu. The Doctor didn't look at the menu at all, just set it closed in front of him and looked past her into the middle distance.

"Okay, what's the plan now?" she whispered. "An orbit burger might be tasty, but this isn't why we came here, right?"

"The plan," he told her even more quietly, almost silently, "is that you let me listen, and look around as unobtrusively as I can while we sit here. We've already made one contact, though the situation is a bit awkward."

"Who, the waitress girl?" Rose breathed back.

He nodded. "Liz. One of the ones that I was told about."

"She's an..."

"No, not quite, but she's close to them. Don't tip our hand, unless I'm giving you a completely clear signal."

Rose sighed and returned to the menu, wondering just what a completely clear signal would be in this situation. Perhaps it would be easier just to let the Doctor make his move whenever he was convinced that the time was right. Maybe the Venus Meatloaf platter was more what she felt like than a burger of any description.

After their drinks had been delivered, and their food orders, (the Doctor absolutely would not be deflected from his Eclipse burger, and Rose finally settled on a 'Galaxy melt,') he finally passed a familiar slip over to her - psychic paper, usually used to fool 'the natives' into thinking that they had some kind of appropriate identification or authorization. Who did he want her to use this on? But the writing that appeared on the paper was a note with her name at the top, and she realized with a smile that he was using it to communicate to her without the risk of being overheard or it being noticed that they were constantly hissing at each other.

'Rose. I've been trying hard to match what I remember hearing about Roswell with what I hear and see around us. If I'm right, there are three teenage aliens here. Michael, the cook in the kitchen, Max and Isabel, a brother and sister...' And that was as much as the paper had room to show at once. She looked up, nodded at him to indicate that she'd read to the end, and after a few more seconds the paper wiped out and started again. 'They're sitting together at the booth second from the front door, along with Alex, Isabel's gentleman friend. And Liz and Maria, the waitress with the wavy dark blond hair, are dating Max and Michael respectively.'

Rose nodded, then passed the paper back to him, concentrating at it furiously. He shrugged and turned the paper to it - there was a jumble of words and sketch pictures of the people involved. Bloody hell! Rose had actually managed to get the psychic paper to work on other people once or twice, but maybe she wasn't concentrating clearly enough - or maybe getting somebody to see something they were half expecting was easier than conveying a concept of her own. Finally she dug a pencil stub out of the front pocket of her purse, and scribbled on the napkin. 'How do we tell them that we know their secret?'

The doctor just nodded somberly, and continued munching away on his burgers and the skinny chips that had come with it. (French fries, as the Americans called them.) Frustrated, Rose picked at her own food a little bit more, and started looking around. It was easy to spot Maria as the girl went around her business of delivering food, taking orders, and bussing her own tables herself - like Liz, Maria was pretty, but not quite as skinny and a bit more exotic looking. In fact, Rose fancied that there was a slight affinity that she herself shared with Maria, but probably that was just a co-incidence.

It was harder to get a good look at the other people who the Doctor's note had mentioned - there was undoubtedly someone in the kitchen who was responsible for cooking the food, but as long as Rose managed to force herself to stare at the little window arrangement, she never really caught a face from in there - just a brief glimpse of hair as someone came up to talk to Maria, the two of them positioned just so that the back of Maria's head was blocking her view. The booth near the front door was even harder to watch, because it was mostly behind Rose, and she couldn't keep shooting meaningful glances over her shoulder without having other people there wondering if she was worried about something following her.

She could listen, though, in fact, it was hard not to as her sense of concentration grew, and she grew convinced that she had picked out two young men's voices and one young woman's that had to be Max, Alex, and Isabel. It was a bit hard to tell what they were talking about - American accents and cultural details at a breakneck speed, but they certainly didn't seem to be mentioning anything unearthly. Then again, they'd have to be stupid teenage aliens to speak so carelessly in a public venue, Rose suspected. One of them - the girl, Isabel, did refer to something being 'Czechoslovakian', and both of the boys started laughing heartily. What did that mean? It was certainly unusual. Czechoslovakia had broken up in the mid-nineties, hadn't it?

Rose hadn't paid particular attention to someone new coming into the dining room, but she did hear Max and Alex greet the newcomer and invite him to their table - 'Kyle.' Rose itched even more to turn around and get a good look, but managed to fight down the urge, and looked around at the tables near the big front window. And that was when she spotted it.

It was a small creature, about as big as a flattened-out cat or racoon, but shaped more like a cross between an arachnid and a reptile, and faster than all of them put together. It half jumped and half crawled up a table leg and out onto the table-top, waving its slithery mandibles enthusiastically. "Look out," Rose cried. "There's a..."

She was drowned out by the screaming when that started.

The Doctor spun immediately into action, not challenging or attempting to capture the unearthly beastie, but keeping it busy by tossing the end of a small ball of string onto the table and moving it around like it was a living thing, while encouraging any of the diners who wished to exit the premises to do so in an orderly fashion. Nearly everybody took him up on his silent offer.

None of the kids that they had been paying attention to seemed to be interested in leaving either, though. Maria helped to keep the diners moving out quickly, while Liz just watched the thing carefully, trying to figure out what it might do next - and shooting an odd look at the Doctor for his choice of diversionary tactics. The foursome from the table also emerged, and Rose was able to get a slightly better look at them now that she was not expected to be paying full attention to her food and her dining companion - a very tall and striking blonde girl who looked as if she could easily be at home on a catwalk - that would be Isabel. The boys were harder to get a grasp on at once - she noticed the lighter hair and well-built arms of one who might be the new arrival, Kyle, and ears that reminded her of Prince Charles.

Nearly everybody else had left the dining room when Michael, the cook, charged through the door from the back, got a good look at the alien beast for the first time, and reacted with instant hostility. Raising his arm, he shot a small pulse of yellow light to the table, where it scorched one of the creature's legs. Suddenly furious in its turn, the thing took a running leap off the table and shot across the floor towards the back door when it landed on the floor. Apparently the damage had not decreased its agility by one jot. Michael tried to shoot it with a light pulse one more time, but missed, and was starting to look worried.

Just as Beastie had launched itself into the air towards Michael's shin, Rose's view of the teenage cook was suddely much greener and full of wavy ripples. It was - what, it sort of looked like she was looking at him through green jello, but that didn't make sense. Where would that much green jell-o have come from? Whatever it was, Beastie bounced off of it, looking rather put out. Rose looked around again, trying to make sense of this, and noticed that one of the other teenagers from the booth - a dark-haired boy without the big ears, and a face full of quiet power, had pointed out towards his friend. Was this some other sort of alien power? A defense, instead of the built-in laser pulse gun?

Liz yelped softly, and Rose looked around to see that Beastie was now making a bee-line back for the booth and its recently departed occupants. Had the alien creature been intelligent enough to recognize what had blocked it from its attack? The girl, Isabel, also made a hand gesture, and Beastie was flipped over onto its back by an invisible force, its legs waving furiously, but it could not appear to right itself immediately, like a turtle.

"Well, that was very informative," The Doctor said, grabbing several of his chips and heading over to the upended Beastie. "No more alien power antics, I think, there really isn't a need for them. Happy to meet you and all that."

The dark-haired teen who had thrown the defensive wall turned to face the Doctor, and the green-ness instantly vanished - like a light once the switch had been turned out. Had it been a force field of some kind? "We don't have long to talk like this before some people come back in to see what happened - and somebody's probably already called the Sherrif. That - that thing needs to be out of sight, and probably we shouldn't all be here, especially not talking about..."

"It's harmless," The Doctor said, feeding a chip into Beastie's maw and flipping it back upright on the back of his left hand. Liz and Maria both exclaimed, and Michael and Isabel both went into pointing postures, but the thing was contented and didn't make any sudden moves. "I mean, no, if you got it upset enough, it might have bitten, and the venom isn't fun for anybody, really. But if we can keep it fed and contented until it's out of town, it'll do alright in the desert. Wander around hunting small prey until it dies at a lonely old age, never finding a mate of its kind." He cocked his head. "Or it just might be unlikely enough to get killed by an armadillo. Circle of life, either way."

The shielding boy looked up to the ceiling for guidance, and then tried to assess the situation. "Okay. Those of us working here can't leave, and I should get back to the museum before anybody notices that I stayed in here. That leaves... Isabel, Alex, you okay with giving this guy a ride out past the city limits?"

"Yeah, sure, Max," Isabel said, her brown eyes flashing with a certain muted fire. "I think that a trip like that might give him a chance to answer some questions."

"I'm going too," Rose insisted, not wanting to get seperated from The Doctor in a situation like this.

"Well enough," Max said, already picking up his jacket. "Um, Kyle - you can go with them, though it might be a tight squeeze in the car, or head off, but you probably shouldn't..."

"Yeah, I got it." Kyle was the one with the lighter brown hair and the athlete's build, as Rose had already guessed from the voices. "Think that my dad might want to know about what happened here."

Rose shot a slightly alarmed look at The Doctor, but he didn't even seem to react to this news. So she thought about what they would need to take the now passive creature out of town - and picked up the Doctor's plate, moving the tiny scrap of burger over to her own plate of uneaten Galaxy melt. There was a lot of unfinished meals around the room, so hers shouldn't attract any attention.

"Umm, let me get you a takeout container quickly for those," Liz volunteered.

"Well - thanks I guess."

"Better than letting you take the plate," Maria put in, with a slight roll of her own eyes.

#

They'd only driven a few blocks in a four-door American sedan before Isabel turned to stare back at The Doctor and Rose. Alex was doing the driving, and he was the one with the big ears, but also a friendly face and manner that helped Rose feel at ease. "Okay, so - so are you guys aliens too?" She asked. "I mean, you realized what was going on with us quick - not that it was hard to tell that something strange was going on. Sheesh, how stupid of Max and Michael to use their powers in front of - and just what is that thing, anyway?"

"I believe it's a Gemalian Waytre," The Doctor said calmly, waiting for the creature to look like it had finished some stage of primary digestion before holding his hand out for another chip. "We just went by the Festival of Sweet Sounds on Gemalia, and it probably snuck into the TARDIS when neither of us were looking. It's actually more used to catching live prey, but these processed vegeform carbohydrates appear to be filling a craving and also tranquilizing it, which is all to the good."

There was a short pause. "Okay, so that's one question answered," Alex said, while Isabel just kept at it with the glare. "And about yourselves?"

The Doctor just shrugged. "He's an alien," Rose explained, feeling sympathetic to their curiosity. "Gallifreyan, I suppose you could say." She was used to The Doctor introducing himself as a Time Lord to people on other planets - sometimes, but she didn't want to necessarily introduce that concept here on Earth. The word derived from his home planet would work better for now - and she thought she'd actually pronounced it correctly. "As for myself, no, I'm definitely the Earthling. Ran into him in London, and - well, I hitched a lift." And there was no need to go into exactly _when_ that had happened.

"Cool," Alex decided. "I don't suppose you use an Electronic Thumb and a sub-etha-sensomatic?"

Rose just stared at him slightly, but The Doctor laughed heartily. "Another Douglas Adams fan - good. No, I actually know of similar gear that's used by hard-core hitchhikers, but they aren't called the same things, more's the pity. Rose just travels with me, so she doesn't need them."

"Alright." Alex sighed slightly as they passed a long industrial building. "Any other questions, dear?"

"Why did you come to Roswell?" Isabel asked. "Were you looking for - for people like us?"

"Yes, but I'd rather not get into all of the details - not until we can meet up with some of your friends again. Assuming that would be possible. And I do have one question of my own."

"Let me guess," Isabel suggested. "You want to know what alien planet we come from?"

"Actually, yes, that's pretty much it."

"Big surprise." Isabel took a deep breath. "We've had a lot of people asking us that question, I suppose, and for a long time we didn't really know anything much about it. Max, Michael, and I - we're all orphans, raised by humans after the Roswell crash, more or less. Now we do have a few more answers - but what if our people are at war with Gallifreyans? Is it safe to tell you anything like that?"

"As far as I know," Rose put in, hoping that this would be helpful, "the Gallifreyans have only been in one great war, and you don't look at all like the Daleks - those are ugly, hateful little creatures who ride around in tin metal cans. Aside from Daleks - The Doctor respects all life. He's done what he can to expose wrongdoers and stop dirty schemes, but he doesn't have it in for anybody just because of who they're born as."

"Why, careful dear, you make me out as some superman or something," The Doctor stage-whispered, holding his hand out for another chip.

"Okay, then - our home planet is Antar," Isabel said after a moment. "Something like two-hundred-fifty parsecs away from here, near a Red Supergiant."

"Antar, Antar, Antar," The Doctor muttered, cocking his head slightly. "I know I've heard of that, but can't quite place it."

"Is this a good enough place to let out the Waytre?" Alex asked, distracting The Doctor. He looked out the window at the terrain, a mix of sandy ground, low grasses and shrubs, a few stands of short trees, and rocky little peaks.

"Yes, that should do well enough, as long as he doesn't find his way back into the town." Alex pulled off onto the shoulder and stopped the car. The Doctor got out of the car and sniffed the air. "Ooh, no, not likely to go back there. Lovely aroma of toluene from that last factory. Our friend will make tracks in exactly the opposite way, and I don't blame him."

Rose circled around the car, and by the time she got there the Doctor had put the waytre onto the sandy slope near the shoulder of the road, but it wasn't moving yet. "Did you give him too many chips?"

"Seems so," The Doctor admitted ruefully. "Rather thoroughly tranquilized. I'm not sure if we should just leave it here and hope that it'll recover before something else comes along to take a bite out of it, or - or find a stick and start gently poking."

"Allow me to try," Isabel decided, stepping around the car. After considering for just a second, she circled around so that she was standing behind the waytre, from the way that they had come, and once again extended her finger. Rose nearly exclaimed an objection, but she wasn't really quick enough, and what emerged from the tip of that manicured digit was only a medium-sized spark, hard to even see in the daylight. When it struck the waytre, the creature appeared to be jolted back into awareness, and after turning around to glare reproachfully at Isabel once, it scuttered off, away from town and bearing left away from the road.

"Not badly done," The Doctor admitted to Isabel. "Antarians! Children of the molecule. Now I remember!"

"Remember what?" Isabel said, wrinkling her nose. "Our parents were molecules?"

"No, no." The Doctor stepped back to the car, where he'd left his door open. "It - it was a reference made in poetry by one of the Antarians' neighbor species, the Klenthorr, in reference to the versatility of your powers, especially the ability to selectively reshape the molecular structure of matter."

"Oh, yeah, they can do that all right," Alex agreed. "Even if technically they're only half Antarian - genetically engineered hybrids sent to Earth."

"Alex!" Isabel exclaimed unhappily.

"Really, how fascinating," The Doctor said, as the last of them took their seats in the car. He looked out into the desert for any trace of waytre before they left, but the little creature was long gone.

"Okay," Isabel said as Alex carefully made a wide U-turn. "If you know so much about our people, then it's my turn again I think. What about Gallifreyans? I don't care so much about enemies - what can you do? Do you have powers, like us, or special technology? How do your people, generally, spend their time?"

Rose gasped, realizing the impact of all of these questions, a second before The Doctor sighed. "My people, generally, do not do much, because there isn't much of a generality," he said, a trace of bitterness coming into his voice. "The great Time War, which Rose referred to - nearly wiped us out. I am the only surviving Gallifreyan that I know of, though I do keep looking for any other refugees from the fighting. The Daleks were also nearly eliminated, but because of their nature they have rebuilt their numbers and been beaten back down at least once since." He shot a look over at Rose. "I do not have any truly inherent powers such as yours, though I am in possession of - let us see, a rather prodigious intellect, I suppose, and a very useful little sonic screwdriver." He held up the little shiny tool and made it hum at a satisfying pitch. "And - my ship, the TARDIS, which can travel from world to world without having to pass through outer space, though it is also capable of operating in a vacuum."

There was a long, silent moment as Alex and Isabel absorbed this much, and Rose wondered if he would say anything more. Surely he would keep the last bit secret, wouldn't he? But no... "And also, the TARDIS will travel through time. I am indeed, a Gallifreyan, but my people, in their ascendance, were more commonly known as the Time Lords."

#

"Hello?" The front door of the Crashdown opened once again, and a tall, dark-haired man in a uniform looked in.

"Hello, Mister Hanson - your usual coffee?" Liz asked, a little too brightly. Darnit.

"Maybe in a minute," he said, "but first, I've got some business. There were a few witnesses who told me that they were attacked by a six-legged, two foot long lizard in here - and were so scared for their lives that they all left in mid-meal." He stepped further into the dining room and looked around. "And it certainly seems like you might have had a number of dine-and-dashers, from the looks of things here."

"Don't worry about the money," Liz said. "We know most of them, and..."

"What about the lizard, Miss Parker?"

"There was no lizard," Liz told him, feeling reasonably safe in her honesty thus far. "More like a spider - admittedly a rather large and creepy looking spider, but still, I admit I was a little surprised at the mob panic reaction to it."

"A spider? Is it still around?"

"Are you volunteering to swat it for us?" Maria asked from behind the counter. "I kid, I kid. It - um, Michael got it to walk on a paper towel and took it out the back way."

Hanson looked around. "I didn't figure Michael for a lover of all of earth's creatures."

Maria tried to stifle a series of laughs. "Um, uhh - no, I was a bit surprised by it too," Liz admitted, and turned around. Yes, Michael had just come into the room. "Michael - what happened to - to the spider once you took it out back?"

"I tripped, and it fell - into the Dumpster," he blurted out. There was a moment's long silence.

"Okay, umm - I'll call this into animal control, they might want to know about this," Hanson said after a long moment. "Once I've finished my coffee."

"They're not going to shut down the cafe, will they?" Liz asked.

"I don't think so - not if the, the spider doesn't seem to still be in here," Hanson told her.

About fifteen minutes later, animal control had been and gone, shooting the kids dirty looks like they had made the thing up, but since they couldn't explain why all the customers had flet the Cafe there was apparently going to be some attempt to warn people in other buildings downtown about the giant spider that had been spotted.

"I wonder when they're going to get back," Maria muttered to Michael as Liz took the orders of the first few new people to come in after the incident. "Isabel, Alex, and the British people."

"Back here, or back to town?" Michael asked her.

"Oh - I didn't think that there would be a difference - but they might not come back here right away, huh? Even if they knew that it had mostly blown over, it might not be that smart."

"Yeah," Michael agreed. "Oh, come on, I think that Missus Purple sweater might be expecting that we replace the chicken burger that she let get cold."

"Oh, great." Maria headed off, taking a deep breath to prepare herself for another confrontation with this particular Convention attendee, who had pretty much made her regret her job choice at least once on each of the past few days.

#

"Okay, now that's our errand done," Rose said brightly as Alex drove back into the town of Roswell. "Umm, this might sound [pushy?] or something, but now that the Waytre's been dealt with, can we - can we still hang out with you, and your friends? I mean, you don't have to obviously, but - I've met a lot of aliens, but none quite like you - who grew up on Earth, and among humans. Makes me feel like you'd sort of understand what it's been like for me, tagging along with the Doctor on his travels through space and time - and occasionally other dimensions, but only by accident because that's _very_ dangerous."

Alex and Isabel exchanged glances. It was easy to see that they were both a little nervous and suspicious, but didn't really want to turn down Rose's appeal. "Okay, but - well, we shouldn't go back to the Crashdown," Isabel pointed out. "And anybody's house where parents might show up would also be 'not a good idea' - they'd ask why we were being so friendly to a pair of Convention attendees we just met, or something like that."

"Okay, so where's left?" Rose asked.

"Michael's?" Alex asked, and Isabel nodded.

"Michael's parents won't be home?" Rose asked.

"Michael doesn't really have parents," Isabel pointed out. "Max and I got adopted when we were little, but Michael - well, he grew up in the foster care system, and didn't do so well with it. Nearly two years ago my father helped him get legally emancipated, so he's got his own place, and he's used to having the whole gang over for discussions that need privacy. I've got a spare key, and probably he'll be around soon, when his shift at the Crash is over."

"Sorry to upset the plans," the Doctor suddenly said, breaking a reasonably long silence, "but I'd really like to check out the UFO museum - by my lonesome, if you don't want to accompany me for this particular outing. There's probably going to be lots there that will be terribly interesting to a fellow like me."

Isabel and Alex remained silence, while Rose oriented on her companion. "You must remember that Max works at the museum," she pointed out. "_No_ pestering him while he's at his work."

"Of course, I wouldn't dream of pestering. In fact, I'll hardly say a word to him. Maybe a casual hello, if the circumstances seem auspicious for such a greeting. Aside from that, my attention will be focused on the exhibits - and perhaps making small talk with other 'convention attendees.' Nothing that'll cause trouble, I inisist."

Rose hesitated, still uncertain. "Okay, go on and have your fun. I'll stick with Isabel and Alex."

The Doctor nodded, and actually Isabel and Alex seemed fairly well satisfied with that arrangement as well. The Doctor was left out downtown, about two blocks away from the museum, and told the directions from there to Michael's apartment, in case he couldn't get a lift with anybody else who knew the way.

The flat, when they finally got to it, didn't too different from a few that Rose had been in near the estate housing back home. There was some inevitable quality about flats where young men lived on their own or in small groups - a slightly carefree spirit, a casual attitude towards elements of higeiyne and good housekeeping, and an undeniable sense of mixed fun and angst. When she realized that this place was so familiar, Rose rather thought that she'd like Michael when they spent more time together. Even the fact that he was half alien didn't affect these lifestyle details, she realized with a little start. Some things never change.

"So, time travelling, huh?" Alex asked as Isabel settled herself on one side of the loveseat. Rose considered the sofa, and then chose to sit on a pretty wooden stool, hoping that she wasn't seeming too picky.

"Yes, and we're not looking for more long-term travellers," Rose said quickly. Alex and Isabel raised opposite eyebrows in so much unison that she had to wonder if that was a practiced gesture. "Sorry - I agreed to go with the Doctor at first when I heard about that, and - and my reasons weren't the best, although I'm glad in retrospect that I made that choice."

"That's alright," Isabel said. "I'm just casually curious. What sort of times have you been to see?"

"Well - wow." Rose struggled with trying to express the breadth of what she'd seen with the Doctor in terms that these kids, (not that she was much older than they,) could understand. "I've been - ohh, millions and millions of years in the future, at least - seen the planet Earth die in the fires of the swelling red Sun..." Isabel squeaked and pulled Alex next to her - he was sitting down next to her in the loveseat by this point. "_And_ also been to visit the New Earth that humans found for themselves shortly after." No need to go into the details of them not being 'pure' human by that point. "I've met Queen Victoria in the Scottish highlands and Charles Dickens in Wales. I went to watch the opening ceremonies of the 2012 Olympics."

There was a moment of silence, and then Alex got it. "It's a bit early, I don't think that they've even got a short list yet, but - London?" Rose nodded. "Okay. Out of all that - what was the most incredible memory? The moment that'll stay with you until the day you die?"

It took Rose a moment, and she actually ruled one thing out as being way too much information to share - the moment she thought that she _would_ die, when she assumed the powers of the Time Vortex and eradicated the Dalek army. But the second place finisher surprised her a little. She couldn't deny the truth of it though. "Hanging from a balloon while the Germans were blitzing London. Wearing, I might add, a Union Jack target on my t-shirt." She looked down at the old-fashioned blue dress. "That was one of the experiences that made me decide to go a bit more cautious with my dress other times."

"Wait, why couldn't you wear a fun t-shirt..." Isabel started, then trailed off, another realization hitting her. "You thought your Doctor would be taking you to the late forties, or early fifties, soon after the Crash, right?"

Rose just nodded slowly, knowing what was next.

"Which means that you were coming to find aliens - and that he knew to find them in the year 2001," Alex said, putting it together quickly.

"To find _us_," Isabel agreed. "About that alien creature, the Waytre-"

"He might have let it sneak into the TARDIS on purpose," Rose admitted. "I didn't even know it was there, but - it wouldn't be the first time I had no clue of what he was planning. And - and I'm sorry for all of this, if it's a bother to you. Travelling with the Doctor has made me a bit too used to seeing miracles, perhaps. I wanted to see Roswell aliens, but it's not like you're an exhibit in a zoo. You're real people with your own private lives that we barged into, and..."

"No, it's..." Alex started, and then hesitated, shooting Isabel a meaningful look.

"It's okay," she insisted after just a moment's pause. "You're friendly and fun yourselves, and as much as I hate to admit it, things were getting a bit boring on the Czechoslovakian front."

"What does that word mean for you?" Rose asked suddenly. "I heard you use it, back at the Crashdown, but there aren't..."

"It's an old code word," Alex put in. "I don't think that Maria picked it because there aren't any Czechoslovakians anymore, but it sort of fits."

"Hey, what are you guys doing here?" Michael called from the door. "Do you really think you own the place?"

"No, but you don't either," Isabel shot back. "Now come on in and sit down quietly. Rose is telling us about the Battle of Britain."

Rose lifted an eyebrow, but when Michael and Maria made their way into the living room, they waved hi without words and took their places on the couch, Maria playfully slipping off her shoes and resting her legs in Michaels lap. So Rose started to tell them about the medical ship and the nanogenes, and the little boy in the gas mask who just wanted his Mummy.


	2. Chapter 2

Liz had only just managed to get half way up the stairs to her family's apartment, above the Crashdown cafe itself, when the phone started ringing. She considered just letting it ring in order to change out of her waitress uniform more quickly, and then decided to take the call. "Hello?"

"Liz?" She immediately recognized her best friend Maria's voice, even if it was a bit hushed and whisper-ey. "Are - are you coming over here? To Michael's place, I mean?"

"Huh?" Liz grunted as she at least whipped the antennae barrette out of her hair. She was way too old for that stuff - they needed new uniforms for the Cafe. "No, I mean - I guess I thought that you and Michael would be wanting some privacy there tonight, though - though you didn't really say so, I admit. But we didn't have plans to hang together, did you? Max was saying something this morning about wanting to actually go out on a movie date, so..."

"Sorry, yeah, you couldn't have known," Maria continued to hiss. Liz sat down on her bed, feeling more and more confused. She couldn't have known _what_? "That - that British chick, the one with the guy who you know... she and Isabel and Alex came here after they finished letting it out beyond the city limits. And - and they've been talking about lots of stuff, and she's been telling stories about her travels, and... and they travel in _time_. Her and the British - British czecho... no, I can't even finish saying it. _that_ British guy."

"Ohh." Liz struggled to get her thoughts in order. "Where is _he_ then, if he's not with his friend, because she stayed with Alex and Isabel?"

"Said something about going to the UFO museum - just to look at the exhibits, not to pester Max. But - have you heard anything from him lately?"

"No," Liz said, starting to feel nervous now even though she really had no firm reason to. "So - so, did you ever tell _anyone_ else in the gang about - about what I told you about thanksgiving, not this past fall but the year before?"

It took just a few seconds for Maria to trace that back through. "No, Liz, of course not, you swore me to secrecy. Even after Tess..."

"Yeah, alright, I just wanted to be sure. Not even Michael?"

"I promise on every sacred bond of sisterhood, and the departed soul of my Breepa..."

"Alright, alright, I believe you!" Finally Liz started to contort her slender body enough that she could begin to strip off the uniform dress without taking the telephone handset away from her face.

"What about you, did you tell Max?"

"Yes - not long after Tess left, and I told him to keep it a secret too, though I couldn't really come up with any reason why that was important anymore. Pretty sure that he hasn't told Isabel or Michael. But now - now maybe all of the gang will need to know the truth."

"And Rose and her friend the Doctor?" Maria pressed. "Are you going to tell them too? We - we don't even really know that much about them yet."

"Take that as it comes, I guess - but if they're experienced time travellers, maybe they can make more sense out of what's happened than any of us could. Has anybody told Rose much about us?"

"Not really that much, at least not since Michael and I got here. Rose is a talker, and I think she feels bad that the Doctor pulled that stunt with the creepy crawly on purpose to break the ice with us."

"Ahh." Liz had had her own suspicions about that scene being at least partly staged, and it made her feel a little better that somebody else was acknowledging that much, even if it was implicit. "Okay, umm - give me a minute to get changed, and then I'll head across the street to see what the score is. No matter what - Max and I will get there, kay?"

"Sure. Oh, I should get off the phone now. Michael's started talking about how much pizza we'll need." Liz snickered at that thought. "Bye Lizzie."

"Bye Maria..." She didn't get much of her friend's name out before hearing a definite 'click' on the phone line.

Around two minutes later, Liz was still belting her blue jeans and looking around for sneakers when she heard footsteps on the stairs and Max's voice tentatively calling to ask if anyone was home. "Yeah, I'm in my room," she called back. "Is our Doctor friend about?"

"Huh? Which doctor friend?"

Liz didn't answer until she was all ready to emerge, though she wondered if Max would actually come into her bedroom - it seemed to be a threshold that he would only pass uninvited when he was at his most - affectionate, no matter how much she told him that he should feel free to come join her when she was getting dressed - or undressed. "The english guy," she said, "who was in the diner this afternoon when..."

"Oh, him. He's a doctor?"

"Apparently that's what he calls himself - just 'the doctor.' Doctor who, do not ask me." Liz chuckled to herself as she stepped up to Max and gave him a kiss hello that was more 'brief' than serious. "And the rumor was that he was going to be spending some time at the museum. I wondered if he would have waited until you were leaving and then tried to come along."

"Ohh - yeah, I did spot him among the other Convention fans, said hi, but that was about it," Max said. "Which is probably a good thing, since we were so busy with the mini-panels. And - and I don't think I spotted him in the past half hour or so, though that's not conclusive considering how hard it would be to see one particular person in the partition layout and with the crowds."

Liz considered. "So he might still be there - or he might have left already?"

"Yeah," Max agreed, taking Liz's hand in his own. "Did you hear anything from Isabel and Alex about their trip out of town together?"

"Not directly - but Maria called from Michael's, and apparently Isabel, Alex, and the Doctor's friend Rose are all over there now," Liz told him. "They've been talking a bit, more hearing Rose's stories than the other way around, which is probably good for a start. I - I told her that we'd probably be heading over there. Michael's ordering pizza."

"Hmm." Max considered that as Liz led the way back to the stairs and got out her keys, possibly considering whether to press for movie night, or just allowing a tiny part of himself to grieve for an opportunity that would not be. "What have they been hearing so far, a lot of interesting stuff?"

"Hmm, well..." Liz pretended to be mulling that over until they were down the stairs, (with the door locked,) out of the building, and even buckled into the seats of Max's jeep, which he usually parked in the Crashdown lot all day when the UFO museum was going to be busy with its own customers. Liz parents never really minded, especially as Max was always heading across the street to visit Liz on his breaks anyway - and spending money too. "I don't really know much about it, except for one detail that Maria thought was important enough to be sure to mention. Max - _he's a time traveller_." That last part had been timed so that it was partly muffled by the sound of the ignition roaring to life, and nobody further away could have overheard the words, she hoped.

"Oh, I see. And you think - your own little experience with - um, I don't even know what euphemism I can use that wouldn't be..."

"Don't bother, then," Liz advised him. "I don't know if I'm going to tell Rose or the Doctor - though I do think that the time has come to talk to the rest of our friends about it, one way or another. And I'm sorry I made you hold out Isabel and Michael for so long."

"Actually..." Max trailed off as he made the first turning off Main street South for Michael's place.

"Oh, come on, don't tell me that you spilled," Liz said, perversely frustrated even though she'd been feeling bad the opposite way before Max had let that one word slip out.

"I - I didn't say it straight out," Max insisted in his own defense. "But with Isabel - I've let a few hints slip, and she suspects something, though I'm not sure how much. She hasn't pushed for any explanations, though. And Michael - I didn't say anything to him, but he's said some things to _me_. I - I guess I assumed that Maria had told him, since you said that she knew."

"No - I just asked her on the phone, she promised on - on big things, Max. If Michael knows, it's not from Maria."

"Maybe - maybe it was from her, but Maria didn't realize or mean for Michael to know," Max said thoughtfully. "Michael could have gotten a flash of what Maria knows, when they were making out or whatever."

"Yeah, I guess that's true," Liz admitted. "It's hard to keep secrets from an Antarian significant other."

"I can't exactly hide my heart from you either, my darling," Max breathed, and pulled into a parking spot half a block away from Michael's apartment. "Well, come on, let's go and see what..." He stumbled to a stop trying to think of what to end that sentence with.

"What kinds of pizza Michael has saddled us with," Liz put in with a giggle. Max nodded appreciatively at that, and hugged her before they started to head over.

#

"Okay, let's see, what else," Rose said after a momentary lull in the discussion of the strange 'Torchwood' references that she'd been noticing in her travels lately, and what they might mean. "There was the mining station with the Ood, that's sort of a funny story, though it was a bit creepy to be going through at the time..."

"Rose, don't take this the wrong way, but most of your stories are _immensely_ creepy at some point or another," Isabel pointed out to her. "Nearly every alien you come across has horrible designs on planet Earth or unfortunate feeding habits - or at least one for every trip that you take."

"Not every trip," Rose insisted. "But - but most of the ones that make compelling stories, yeah... I guess I can see how you would thing that. There **are** a lot of scary beings and races out there, and the Doctor is - well, he always says that he's a magnet for intergalactic trouble, and I'm starting to think that he's right. He's also the guy you'd want to _solve_ an alien problem too, though, so it works out rather nicely."

"Almost as if those situations start to gravitate towards him because somebody or something _wants_ him to take care of them?" Alex suggested. "Or like it's his function in the universe?"

"Okay, this is starting to get a bit too philosophical for me," Michael said, finally putting the phone down after what had seemed a very intricate series of instructions to the pizza place. "And you've told us enough stories, really - don't you want to know something about us too?"

"Well, I didn't want to push," Rose admitted quietly. "And I'd sort of rather the Doctor was around for that, though I'm not sure why. He obviously knows something about you, to find you all. I'm not sure how much." She smiled. "And I love having an audience for my stories, without _him_ around to tell them his way. Even Mickey never really wanted to hear about my travels, before he came along too, because they made him feel inadequate or something. And when he did hitch a lift of his own, it was only a few hops we took before - before the Cybermen world, and he - and he never came back."

There was a moment's pause, and then Michael plopped noisily down onto the couch, (there was a sort of a creak and another thing not quite the same that was between a crack and a moan,) and considered for just a moment before opening his own mouth. "Around - around the time that Liz found out about us, which is a story we'll save for later because the Doctor _should_ hear it if possible - well, Kyle's father, Jim Valenti, was an amateur UFO chaser in those days. Not that he was really chasing for aliens in the skies - that's just an expression, but he was obsessed with finding anything like us. And - and he figured out that Liz had found a lead, or found one of us, because Kyle - Kyle saw a silver handprint on her stomach, near where the gunshot had gone in, and Jim had seen similar handprints near - well, near other alien phenomena, and..."

"Wait a second," Rose said. "What gunshot?"

"I guess that's part of the story he wasn't going to go into," Isabel said dryly, shooting a fond smile over at Michael. "Liz was - she was shot, in the Cafe, because of an argument that had nothing to do with her, and Max used his healing powers to save her life." Rose made a small impressed sound. "Yeah. But other Antarians - the surviving adults from the Roswell crash - they'd been using their powers to kill, when they were trying to avoid getting captured, and leaving the same silver handprint. So - well, all three of us were panicked, and in fact we tried to leave town, but Liz convinced us that there was another way. That was the night of the Crash festival, another big event on the Roswell tourist calendar, and..."

Just then there was a rather polite knock on the door. Rose and Alex looked at each other. "That the Doctor come to fetch you away?" Alex asked with a soft chuckle.

"As much as I'd like to see him, I don't want to go away just yet," Rose replied.

"Could be the pizza already," Michael put in. Maria had already gotten up from the sofa and made her way to the door, opening it to reveal - Max and Liz. "Or not, I guess. Hi guys."

"Oh, hello," Rose said once she'd spotted and recognized the newcomers. "You didn't happen to see my friend recently, did you?"

Max took a breath. "No, actually not, though he did say hi in the Museum. Kept an eye out for him on the drive over - but if he was walking, he could have just taken a different route."

"Are you worried, honey?" Isabel asked Rose. "We could go out looking for him - the UFO center's still open, we could check there, and..."

"I - I do feel just a bit worried, but it's probably overreacting to send out the search parties just yet," she admitted. "Just - what I said about him being very good at finding trouble, though that applies just as well to me when I'm with him, I suppose. He can take care of himself, but..."

"Does he have a cell phone too, that you can call?" Alex suggested, pointing to Rose's superphone that she had been anxiously fiddling with and had set on the coffee table. (She hadn't been sure if calling her mother from so recently in the Earth's past might have set up some kind of paradox effect, or if it might have accidentally reached Jackie Tyler in the year 2001, before Rose had left home.

"Oh, umm - no. Could reach just about anybody in the galaxy, except for him..." The thought suddenly made her wonder, and she picked up the phone, wanting to try it to get through to him, but uncertain how to do it. He had never given her a number to connec to him, but there was the voice-calling feature. "Call the doctor," she instructed the phone, feeling a bit foolish. Around her the Roswell gang waited in silence, wondering what would come of that.

The phone rang twice and then picked up. "Hello, this is the Doctor," his familiar voice came over the tiny earpiece speaker.

"Oh, thank heaven, Doctor. Where are you? All the kids are here at Michael's place, really, and they've called in for pizza..."

"...you've reached the TARDIS, time and relative dimensions in space," he kept reciting. "Unfortunately, nobody's here to pick up the police call phone at the moment, so please leave a message for Rose Tyler, Nicky, or me at the beep. _Beeep_!" It had clearly been the Doctor crying the word 'beep' rather loudly himself, and not an articifially synthesized tone.

Rose took a deep breath, trying to keep from laughing or something at the absurdity of reaching an answering machine in the TARDIS, and manged to compose her thoughts. "Hey, Doctor. This is Rose, and I'm over at Michael's place, sort of wondering if you've run into trouble, off on your lonesome. I'll probably run into you before you hear this, but if not, then get over to Michael's place, or - well, I guess that's it." She wondered if it was possible that he'd lost the directions to Michael's - no, he'd have memorized them on the spot, surely. "Oh, it's evening-ish, of our first day since arriving in Roswell. Couldn't tell you the time any better than that, after all our travels. Okay."

She hung up the phone and looked up, straight into Liz's face, as it happened. "Got his voice mail?" Liz asked, in a fairly neutral and slightly sweet tone.

"Sort of - he set up an answering machine in our ship," Rose replied. "Don't know quite why, since very few people would be able to call it up, but never mind that."

"Okay, so what next?" Max said. "Umm, I don't think that we really went through the pleasantries before, Rose, but time was short. I'm Max Evans, Roswell alien-in-residence, and this is my girlfriend Liz Parker."

"Yes, thanks," Rose said, getting up to shake both their hands. "Rose Tyler, I..." For a second, she had no idea how to sum up her identity as concisely as Max just had. "I'm from London, worked as a shopgirl until I met the Doctor - in the year 2004." It seemed important to her to mention this point then, that she was from a few years in their future. She had avoided talking much about her adventures in her own era because of this - they wouldn't know anything about the Slytheen crash, or the Christmas invasion for instance. Those would make the worldwide news, but hadn't happened yet. "I've been travelling with him for about two years, in my personal timeline."

"Alright," Liz said, and looked around the room. Maria instantly scooched over on the sofa so that Max and Liz would be able to fit there if they wanted to sit down, though it would be a bit cramped with four occupants, including Michael. "There's - um, there's something that I wanted to ask you and the Doctor about, I think... and to make sure that all of my closest friends know. Something about time travel - but I probably shouldn't get started until he's here."

Michael had stiffened slightly. "Umm, Liz, are you sure that you want to... to tell them about whatever it is? I mean, sorry, but it's Roswell business, and..."

"Give up the act, Michael, I'm pretty sure you know most of it," Liz informed Michael. "Not his fault, Maria, or yours, but we can't protect from flashes, not when we're in love, any of us. And yes, Michael, I'm fairly sure. We need an expert consultation, and we're not likely to get a better expert."

"What do you mean by flashes?" Rose asked. Once again, there was an exchange of glances.

"It's another of our alien abilities, sort of," Isabel said. "When we touch a person, or an object, sometimes we get impressions - see images from the past, or from their minds." She reached out a hand. "Would you like me to try it with you?"

Rose considered for a long time - and just as she was stretching out her own arm, there was a knock on the door again. Rose spun around to go answer it - and heard the pizza man call out his company identity just before she reached the knob. It took a little while for the six extra-large deluxe pies to be transferred into Michael's apartment, and for the full payment to be gathered and handed over. Maria was just closing the door when she heard the delivery guy telling someone 'hello, here for the party?' and so she waited for a moment just to see. Sure enough - it was the Doctor and Kyle Valenti, who had met up downtown as the Doctor was just getting ready to head over.

"Dad wanted to come and meet the new people, but he's on shift tonight at Metachem," Kyle told the assembled company. "He's still convinced that they're interested in aliens, but no smoking gun yet."

"Hello," Rose said to Kyle, who immediately blushed and mumbled something. "So, you and your father are just... friends and interested parties?"

"Dad's not extraterrestrial, if that's what you mean," Kyle replied after a moment to compose himself - and not looking straight at Rose. He seemed to have a bit of trouble doing that and speaking coherently. "I, well, I was born human, but apparently I'm somewhat 'changed' because Max saved my life. Liz too. He saved Alex's brain, but apparently that doesn't count."

"What on earth?" Rose said, and to cover her confusion she reached out to put a slice of bacon-double-cheeseburger pizza on her paper plate. "Saved his brain? Not in a jar, I hope."

"You'll have to forgive Kyle's melodrama, I suppose," Isabel said, squeezing her arm around Alex's shoulders.

"I dunno, it kind of fits," Alex admitted himself. "I... I could have had lifelong brain damage or just plain gone crazy if you guys hadn't figured out what was happening and gotten Max to help."

"What was it?" the Doctor asked, his voice concerned but kind - a 'bedside manner,' sort of.

A short pause before Liz took up the tale. "For nearly a year, there was... another alien teenager, here in Roswell. Tess Harding, that's the name that she used. She came here with Nasedo, the last of our guardians from the ship, a shapeshifter - he pretended to be Tess' divorced father."

Rose listened to the silence for several seconds before she prompted. "Okay, what - did she do something?"

"Well, yeah," Maria replied in her turn. "Tess - well, she was convinced that Max was her destined mate, no matter what Max thought or how much Liz loved him. We all knew that much, but nobody guessed how much she was really playing her own game. She - um, she needed a set of instructions on how to go home translated, and she thought that Alex could help her. Rather than risk taking no for an answer..." Maria's voice had been getting more and more unsteady, and she broke off into dry sobs at this point, Michael and Liz immediately comforting her.

"Tess had powers to bend other minds to her will - not perfectly, but she wasn't shy about using them on us when she had to," Alex explained, more matter of factly. "I really don't think that she realized the side-effects of what she was doing on me - keeping me working on her program, pushing my brain to work at higher efficiency than natural, and covering up my memories afterward. And she manipulated Max too, helping him get over Liz after they broke up and keeping him from seeing her true self. If her plan had worked, they'd have left in the Granilith, maybe Michael and Isabel too, before anybody found out that I'd been mindwarped. But Liz and Maria started to snoop around a couple of clues, and soon the whole thing was tumbling down."

"But you let Tess leave anyway," the Doctor guessed. "In this Granilith."

"Well, yes, it was a tough decision and I'm not sure I made it right," Max admitted. "But even if we had a three to one advantage over her, or more - she was very strong, and I didn't want anybody to get hurt if I pushed her into a fight. And - and she was pregnant, and it seemed like the baby couldn't be safely born on Earth. That might have been more of Tess' tricks, giving me a reason to leave with her, but in the end I felt I couldn't be sure about that."

There was another hushed pause. "Pregnant?" Rose said, after a moment. "And - and it was yours, Max?" He nodded ever so slightly, squeezing Liz's hand. Rose couldn't react for a moment, and then, to her surprise, the words she said were "Liz, honey, I'm so sorry..."

That actually made Liz burst out in nervous giggles. "Come on, I don't need the sympathy overdose from you too. It - it's something that I wouldn't have chosen to happen, but maybe that's why we don't get those choices. Max's daughter isn't the spawn of the devil, she's going to grow up into somebody pretty amazing... though I admit I share his motivation to make sure that somebody much less selfish than the Tess we all knew is raising her and teaching her about life."

"I just feel so dirty and idiotic, that I fell for her tricks, that I actually..."

"Stop that," Liz insisted. "None of us were entirely responsible for our choices back then. Tess was doing her best to make us all dance to her tune."

"Are you following along?" Rose asked the Doctor, who was sitting in a wooden IKEA armchair next to her, and seemed to be enormously enjoying his hot veggie slices.

"Yes, I think so," he stage-whispered back. "More stuff about mind-bending powers - mixed in with a melodrama plot good enough for... oh, what's that American show - Dawson's creek?"

Immediately a chorus of 'Love it' or 'Hate it!' rang out in semi-unison from the Roswell residents, with the girls mostly expressing their approval and the guys disapproval, but a few exceptions in that gender-based rule.

Maria shook her head, chuclking. "Liz, you had something that you wanted to ask our expert about. Something involving time travel, and alien powers, and melodramatic plots."

"Umm, yeah, okay," Liz said, taking a deep breath. "Last fall - I had an unexpected visitor come to my balcony at the Crashdown apartment: a future self of Max, from the year 2014. At first I didn't believe it was him, but he called out a scene between me and Max my own age - when he came to serenade me with a mariachi band. He said that in his time, aliens had attacked the Earth, and the reason they had lost was because Tess had left them and run away from town."

"Hmm, alright," the Doctor said, thinking. "You're sure that this wasn't an illusion or a trick arranged by Tess herself? You never saw another time period yourself, just this alternate Max?"

"No, I didn't see any other direct evidence, but I've worked out what Tess would need to do to fake the whole experience, and I'm convinced it would be beyond her abilities - that if she could have done so much, she could have gotten what she wanted much more smoothly and easily with a more obvious strategy. Especially because later, I was seeing Future Max and talking with him while Max was meeting Tess and holding a conversation with her, halfway across town."

"Yes, that does seem unlikely," the Doctor admitted. "And the possibility that she had a confederate? Someone who could take on Max's semblance, for instance?"

"Yeah, we thought about that, but - well, the obvious suspect doesn't seem to have been invoved," Liz said. "Or a few less-obvious suspects. And whoever it was would have to have known certain things that only Max and I knew."

"Okay, carry on with the story," the Doctor said. "I didn't mean to interrupt."

So Liz recited the litany of plots that she'd hatched to try to get Max to fall for Tess, or fall out of love with her, including all of her arguments with Future Max over the necessity, and how she'd gotten the idea of having Max discover her in the aftermath of a (faked) tryst with Kyle, from Maria's description of her own troubles with Michael and Courtney, an alien waitress who'd been staking them out at the time.

"Okay, now in my capacity as an expert, I do have some questions," the Doctor said, much more seriously, after Liz had described in vivid detail her last dance with Future Max, and how he had apparently vanished from her arms. "You've mentioned a few times this Granolith. Just what was it? How much do you know about it?"

Max immediately bristled. "What does that have to do with the situation?"

"It has _everything_ to do with it," the Doctor snapped. "You wanted my expert opinion as a time traveler, and Future Max mentioned that the Granolith was the mechanism of this journey into his own past. I must understand everything I can about its nature and capabilities. Now I have an educated guess, but I was hoping to confirm that much." Max silently set his jaw. "Since you're acting so hostile, I'll feel free to ask leading questions. Is it true that you don't know much about where it came from, that even as much as you know about Antarians, they either don't know how it works or simply won't tell you much about it? Possibly they consider it a religious artifact of great significance, or a cultural link to the royalty. It can be used as a makeshift spaceship, that's an obvious guess from what you said about Tess taking it to go home - and I suspect that if you saw it in something close to its true shape, it would be a cone, perhaps twenty feet high."

"How - how did you know all that?" Isabel asked, flabbergasted. Max shot her a dirty look for confirming the Doctor's guesses.

"Because it is of _my_ people!" the Doctor flared. "An ancient, historical precursor to the TARDIS I use myself, fashioned by the Time Lords when they were still learning to manipulate the forces of space and time, matter and energy. _GRANOLITH_ - Gravity relations and Nearby Objects Leading Inversely Towards... no, sorry, I can't make the acronym come out right in English. Thought I had it there for a moment, but..."

"You meant you thought you could make up something off the cuff that would sound impressive," Rose shot back. "Like you so often do." The Doctor just shrugged, not commenting either way really.

"Okay," Max said, returning to the issue. "So you say that the Granolith is old... and old Time Lord relic? That's the name of your people?"

"Galifreyan, or Time Lord, yes," Isabel supplied helpfully. "The Doctor is possibly the last of the Time Lords, the only survivor that he knows of the Time War with the Daleks."

"Okay," Max said after a moment. "Are you claiming that as the sole surviving heir of Galifrey, the Granolith should be returned to you?"

The Doctor considered this question carefully. "I don't have any need for it myself. But my concern is that the Granolith could be dangerous technology - dangerous to the entire patch of spacetime occupied by this galaxy in this millenium. According to Liz's description, Future Max passed through a rift in time, opened by the Granolith, and changed his own past. That _isn't_ supposed to be _possible_! Myself, I would have expected that cleaners would have followed him through the rift, and wouldn't have rested until the prior timeline had been restored - by killing the older Max before he could fufill his mission, for example. Maybe they tried, but couldn't, because he had already touched Liz's life, and she was too important to the timeline that Max had come from..."

"So - so do you want to fix things yourself?" Maria asked, looking nervous.

"No." The Doctor sighed. "If this timeline were truly broken, there'd be signs of instability by now, obvious to someone like me who knows what to look for. I can't 'fix' it now - somehow time has managed to heal by itself. But there are a few things that I need to do in order to ensure that the patch holds, like examine the Granolith in the present." He stared intently at Max. "And if I judge that the Granolith's existence might lead to another risk like the one that you've all just missed - then I will dispose of it properly. Understood?"

There was a long tableau, and Max maintained a stony silence. Michael cleared his throat and weighed in. "So you mean to visit Antar, and track down the Granolith?"

"I do." For a second, the Doctor matched Max's stony mood, and then he let a wide grin break out. "Anybody wanna lift?"

"Just think about it, Max," Liz said, rubbing her hand up and down his arm. "We've been wanting a way to go there and settle with Tess. This is perfect, if we agree to let the Doctor call the shots with respect to the Granolith - which, hello, we don't have right now, and have no other opportunity to get back, really. I suspect that travelling via TARDIS even solves a few more minor problems - like explaining our absence, because we won't be absent long. The Doctor can bring us back only a few minutes after we left."

"Theoretically, yes," Rose said warningly. "Just as long as he doesn't land a _year_ later by accident."

"You're never going to let me live that down, are you?" The Doctor shot back, but his eyes were bright with the challenge. "If I'm careful, you'll be okay, and yes, that's a deal I'll be willing to approve. Passage for all of you to Antar, with time adjustment to minimize your absence, and assistance in retrieving your daughter, Max, and dealing with her mother - in exchange for your assitance in tracking down the Granolith, and acceptance that I determine its fate. Probably Tess and the Granolith won't be far away from each other." He reached out a hand towards Max, though they weren't sitting close enough to each other. "Do we have a deal?"

Max shot Liz another look, which this time was somewhat more calculating, and Liz smiled in response. "You have to recognize, Doctor, that Max feels _very_ protective of the Granolith - even if it's not here anymore. It was sort of placed here under his protection, as near as we can figure out, and as you said, it's a focus of political and cultural power among the Antarian people. Now yes, it would be better for the thing to be dismantled than fall into the hands of his enemies, but still - I'm thinking you might have to sweeten the pot with a second favor."

"His enemies?" Rose asked. "Am - am I missing something here? I thought you lot grew up here on Earth. How do you have enemies on Antar?"

"That's... that's a bit complicated," Isabel admitted unhappily.

"Do you mean the enemies of your parents?" the Doctor prompted? "Who have extended the blood feud to you?"

"That's sort of like it, but there are a few twists," Michael said. "You - you were told that we're hybrids, biologically, right?" The Doctor and Rose nodded. "It's not as simple as being born of one Antarian parent and one human parent, though. We - we're sort of altered clones of young Antarians who were killed in a great civil war. Not just from their DNA, but apparently their energy or something like their spirits were saved, and transplanted into us. And DNA - harvested from abducted humans was blended in, to allow us to pass for human almost perfectly, and hide ourselves in human society."

"Hmm." The Doctor considered this. "I've heard of psychic energy being maintained after people die, but never come across an example like this. Do - do you mind if I ask you what you know about the civil war, and what role your predecessors played in it?"

"Do you know anything about Antarian historic civil wars already?" Liz asked.

"A few - but I'm not familiar with the full history of that civilization, so I might be in the wrong era entirely. Please."

"Okay," Max said. "My - my predecessor was King Zan, the eldest son of Sanren of the royal house of Liaret, who inherited the throne at around seventeen Antarian years old, when Sanren was assasinated. He tried to root out the forces ultimately behind the assasination, led by Duke Kivar Andraikus, but couldn't get support of enough of the old-guard nobles and corrupt guild leaders."

"While the people loved him for his noble reforms?" the Doctor asked with a slightly raised eyebrow.

Max laughed. "It might not be a perfectly neutral point of view, but that's what we've heard - except for the version that Kivar's own lackeys have occasionally spouted."

"Fair enough," Rose admitted. "Everybody has their own side of history."

"Soon after the fighting started, Zan was - was betrayed, captured by Kivar, and put to death," Max said slowly, looking down, as Liz nudged him supportively with her leg, (next to Max's own,) and rubbed his back with her hand. "Along with - with his wife of about a year, Ava of Dervensee - who was Tess' analog, and - his older sister, the Princess Vilandra," Max waved generally in Isabel's direction, "and her fiancee, Zan's general, Rath of Selezir." This time Max pointed much more directly at Michael.

"Wait a second," Rose put in. "Vilandra didn't get to be queen? Sexist much? Girls can't inherit the throne?"

"Probably not until there aren't any boys in the line of succession, or something like that," the Doctor said. "All right, I've heard a very little bit about the Kivarian war, as it was known, though I'm not going to tell you anything about how it turned out if we're going to be going there. Now - what's this other favor that you had in mind?"

Liz checked around the room with her eyes as well as she could before she answered this. "Well, we all realize, really, that we're operating on too little information, and too secondhand, when it comes to the Antarian history stuff. How about a trip to Antar's past, around the time that the civil war was brewing? That could help us get our bearings for the important trip, in Antar's present?"

The Doctor chewed on this, as Isabel, in particular squirmed but didn't object out loud, partly due to Alex's silent reassurances. "Possible. There are a number of rules that I'd insist on as the chaperone of such an expedition. Number one, obviously, is that you can't attempt to change the facts of the past as you know them - no sneaky plans to save Sanren from his assasination, or to spare the lives of Zan, Vilandra, Rath, or Ava. We'll want to keep our distance in time from the outbreak of hostilities, and the death of the four young people, just on the grounds that it might be too easy to change something by accident. But a visit to Sanren's court, not long before he is doomed to die, with the foursome as fourteen or fifteen in Antarian terms - that should be manageable."

"We don't even know that all four of them were at court at that point," Maria pointed out. "Zan and Vilandra, likely yes, but..."

"We'll need to go on a fact-finding mission, obviously," the Doctor put in. "Somewhat undercover - probably in the present, where all of this is recent history, and someplace just on the periphery of the Antarian sphere of influence. Kaalto, perhaps, or maybe Landorin. I'll have to check. For that first leg of the journey, and maybe going back into Antar's past, I'll make no secret of my being a Time lord, and let the rest of you pass for Gallifreyans or other humanoid companions. Probably best not to mention Earth by name. Sound good?"

"Do people all over the universe recognize the Time Lords?" Alex asked.

"Most species who have developed space travel and contacted others have at least heard the rumors about us, which the Antarians definitely have by this time," the Doctor said offhandedly. "We shouldn't have any problems."

"Okay, there's something I've been wondering," Michael suddenly put in. "You Time Lords - you're all time travellers, right?"

"Well, not all our species, we do have a large fraction of homebodies who never journey much in space _or_ time," the Doctor laughed. "Or did. But yet, most of our travellers, who are considerably more represented than in most species, would take advantage of TARDIS technology to tour time."

"So even if their - if their timelines ended at the Time War, you could still meet them at some point before they died, right?" Michael pressed.

The Doctor let out a very melancholy sigh, and Maria elbowed Michael just on general principles. "No, that's alright, it wasn't his fault," the Doctor said. "Fair question. Yes, unless I have information that such a meeting would be changing the past of one of my nationals, I could meet them in such a way - though it is hard for one TARDIS to trace or home in on another, so there would be numerous practical difficulties in arranging such a meeting. I - I have not attempted it yet, though. To meet one of my old friends, and know that they are yet doomed to die - I'm not sure if I could handle that. And it would be disastrous to let them realize that the great battle against the Daleks was in their future too soon. It could change the entire course of the war."

"I'm sorry," Michael muttered by reflex, but the Doctor waved him off.

"Let us turn our minds again to the practicalities of this journey of ours. Although returning at the very same moment we left is technically possible, there are logistical and psychological problems with 'cutting it too close' - the Narnia effect, for one, of adjusting to the idea that those you have left behind have not lived through the weeks or months that you have can be hard to get used to, and allowing as much time as possible, so as to minimize the relative difference, is advisable. Also, as Rose said, time orienting in my TARDIS is not perfect, and above all we would want to avoid arriving before we left. Can - can you arrange to cover your absences for a day, or even two?"

Again, there were many exchanged glances among the Roswell natives. "I - I suppose we could pull out the old 'gone camping in the woods' excuse for this weekend," Isabel suggested. "It's been a while, actually."

"Right," the Doctor said, rubbing his hands together. "And just how close is the weekend?"

"It's Thursday evening," Kyle blurted out - nearly the first time he'd spoken since meeting the new visitors. "So we'll be able to go tomorrow afternoon."

"Do you need a place to stay until then?" Michael chimed in.

"Well, we can just sleep in the TARDIS," Rose said. "Wouldn't be the first time."

"Yes, that's probably best, rather than trying to pull out that fold-out," the Doctor said, indicating the somewhat battered couch opposite him. "But I can probably move the TARDIS closer to here, since it seems to be a convient meeting point. We'll take in the sights of the convention tomorrow while you lot are in classes, and make a few preparations of our own."

"You mean you'll make preparations, and I'll play the tourist," Rose joked.

"Do you think your Dad will want to come along?" Max asked Kyle. "Or are you coming yourself, as far as that goes?"

"Oh, I'll go," Kyle insisted quickly. "And - and I'll ask Dad. I think he's only got the one shift, Sunday night, after tonight. We'll be back in time for him to make that, right?"

"I should hope so," Liz said. "My parents will pitch a fit if I'm not back in bed on a school night. Overprotective..." Her mumbles trailed off into the unintelligible.

"That's not such a bad thing, they just want the best for you," Rose told Liz, feeling nostalgia for her own mum.

"Anyway, as I was saying," Kyle continued, "he may well be up for it. I know that he's been feeling a strange urge to learn more about the alien stuff, if he could do that safely - and he still thinks of himself as your guardian knight."

"With my luck, he'll invite my Mom along too," Maria put in. "Ever since she found out, he's been wanting to help her see what the alien thing is really like - which is the last thing I want, most of the time."

"Maybe this one actually will help her relax, Maria," Liz suggested. "It does seem like a nice trip abroad to the stars... oh, that reminds me. What about the language issue?"

"The TARDIS will cover that," Rose told them brightly. "It automatically translates for anyone who's travelled inside it or are even in the area."

"Useful," Max said. "Okay, well, with all of that settled, I guess we can tell a few more stories, before any of us need to head back home. Who's got a good one?"

"I might as well, since we've got more listeners than you do," the Doctor volunteered. "Did you cover the Gamestation in the year two hundred thousand and change?"

"Ooh, no," Rose said, shuddering. "I couldn't bear to - eugh, so horrible."

"Sounds interesting," Michael replied instantly. Maria shook her head and elbowed him again, but nobody stopped the Doctor as he started telling them about the game show revival of the far future.


	3. Chapter 3

They started to clean up and get ready to go home from Michael's place, pretty early, a little after ten in the evening.

"I forgot all about Brody and the convention - for a little while," Max said as he held one of the empty pizza boxes open for Liz to dump dirty napkins and other trash into it to get carried over to the garbage - and tried not to sound whiny. "Friday evening and Saturday are going to be really busy, until the big farewell dinner. That's twenty-fours hours that I'm going to hang him out to dry, and..."

"Come on, Max, he'll be okay," Isabel pointed out. "Brody Davis has a big staff, and probably most of them would be eager to take on extra hours. You're just thinking of that first convention you worked, when it was just you and Milton Ross."

"Oh, you worked for Milton here?" the Doctor asked from down on the floor - at one point in the re-enactment of a chase scene, the end-table had born the brunt of an enthusiastic fall, so he had volunteered to put the sonic screwdriver to work fixing it. "I didn't even know that he set up shop in Roswell."

"Yeah - you've met him?" Michael asked, a bit warily again. "When, and how?"

"Probably around the time you kids were - well, never mind that. Early nineteen-eighties. He was working as a specialist with UNIT, and - well, I won't go into all of that. He was never in what you might call the inner circle, though - he didn't know my story, for instance - and eventually went absent without leave. I guess I haven't really thought much about him since that day."

"Poor Milton, never learns the whole story," Max said, the corner of his mouth quirking up. "Come to think of it, we're not really sure what happened to him either."

"No," Maria said. "And one other thing we haven't heard so far is how you knew when and where to find us, Doctor. Rose mentioned that she'd wanted to come to Roswell and find aliens, and that you knew to arrive in this year, and you headed straight for the Crashdown. What gives with that?"

"Sorry, dear, but I'm afraid I can't give you all of the answers that you seek," the Doctor admitted.

"Do - did you get your information from someone who's met us in our future?" Liz said. "So that you can't give us all of the details without risking changing our futures?" She met the Doctor's eyes, and once again he silently nodded. "Does - I'm feeling a bit dizzy and light-headed here, but - does the name Serena mean anything to you?"

"What?" The Doctor actually dropped his screwdriver, and nearly let the table topple over. Rose absently reached out to steady it so that the Doctor could rise to his feet in stupefaction and walk towards Liz Parker, staring at her. "Did - did Future Max mention that name?"

"Well, yes. He said that she'd be my friend, and... and that they couldn't have worked out the time travel stuff without her. That's about all, but ever since, I've been sort of waiting for somebody to come into my life introducing herself by that name, and not sure how to react to that person when it happens."

"That's all you know, not even a last name?" the Doctor asked, and Liz nodded. "Well - I didn't expect that she'd be part of something quite this foolish, using a pre-TARDIS to open up a rift in time and send a person through. But since that timeline has changed, I can't even properly tell her off for that."

"Is she of the Time Lord people too?" Maria asked.

"Nuh-uh, not telling," the Doctor insisted. "You'll have to wait until you meet her. I - I'll tell you a bit of how much she told me about you, just so that you understand where I'm coming from, but nothing that you wouldn't know yourself at this point."

"Okay, I suppose," Max said. "Actually, I think that I can guess. You knew a few things when you first showed up - you were able to recognize most of us based on our appearances or our names, and you knew who was dating whom or related to whom, but I don't think that you knew many more of the specifics than that. For anybody who's heard stories about us from these days, it would be an easy guess that some of us would be working at or hanging out at the Crashdown on any particular afternoon. You were lucky enough to get us all, as it happened."

"Quite good," the Doctor had to admit.

"And in terms of the 'when'," Alex supposed, "maybe this was the last year, one of the last months, when we can all still be found here in Roswell. We've got plans underway to head off elsewhere for college, after all. And you wouldn't have wanted to go earlier if you had the option, because for one thing, we'd have been noticeably less mature, harder for - well, for people like the two of you to relate to."

The Doctor just waved a 'what can I add to that' gesture to Alex, and made a little bow.

Once the clean-up was finished, plans were made for trips home. Isabel insisted on getting a ride home with Alex, and leaving Liz to go with Max, despite the fact that she lived at the same place as Max, with their adoptive parents. Obviously the 'private goodbyes' were seen as worth the extra petrol and so on, Rose decided. She wouldn't have interfered with that herself, but the Doctor asked Max if he could also let the two of them ride as far as the Crashdown, so that they could go on and fetch the TARDIS.

"I guess it's you and me again, DeLuca," Kyle said to Maria with a mock bow, and Maria sighed, kissed Michael good-night very affectionately, and didn't say much else until they were well on their way home in Kyle's car. (Maria's mother was driving the Jetta herself that day.)

Then Maria turned to the young man who might yet become her step-brother and asked him: "So , you have the hots for that Rose chick, right?"

Kyle stammered for only a moment before catching his composure. "Well, yeah, actually, why wouldn't I? Pretty blonde, funny and confident, sexy as hell, and _oh_ that accent. Lord have mercy!"

"Really? I wouldn't have figured that a British 'bird' would be your type." Kyle shrugged. "And she's older than we are."

"Not seeing where that's a downside even a little bit."

Maria had to chuckle in response. "And what about her and the Doctor?"

"Hmm? What, you think that she's already spoken for? I was looking for a signal that way, I have to admit, and I didn't see one. Not so much as holding hands. Seemed to me like she was a free agent."

"Yeah, well..." Maria struggled to find words, but they all escaped from her, and she let out her breath as an 'eesh' sound between hardly seperated lips. "No, they weren't obviously affectionate as a couple, but - but I saw something pass between their eyes. Maybe it's just sexual tension between two people who have known each other a while, maybe it's something a bit more. But I respectfully suggest that you should learn more and be very careful of what you're stepping into. That Doctor isn't one who you'd want to piss off, or any of us really, should be careful about that."

"Okay, yeah, thanks for the warning, yeah," Kyle said, a bit breezily. "But if it's just a 'will they or won't they' thing, then I think I can handle myself moving into that situation, now that I know what to watch out for."

"Don't make too many assumptions, though, Kyle," Maria said, but by this point he was already pulling up outside her house and she really couldn't lecture him any more.

#

For all the years that she'd been doing it, Rose never felt like she'd entirely get used to waking up in her room in the TARDIS, or be able to describe to someone who hadn't travelled with the Doctor what it was like. Being in a hotel room was something like it, not because of the ambience and the decor so much as the sense it immediately conveyed of how she was on holiday, how she was travelling. Even though it was the same room every time, she immediately associated waking up in that bed with asking herself the question 'where and when am I now?'

Of course, she was mostly guessing about the hotel connection, because she'd never really been in that many before travelling with the Doctor - a few on a road trip with Micky to see friends up in Aberdeen. Maybe it didn't matter that much. During the first few months since she'd started to come with him, she'd managed to accumulate some nice furniture and turn the first room on the left into a place that felt just as much like home to her as the room she still had in her Mum's estate housing - if in a very different way. The bed was one that she'd found for sale at auction in late nineteenth century Ireland, and since the auctioneer had insisted on receiving cash on the line in the local chronistic currency or he'd give the piece away to the next highest bidder, she'd had to appeal to a dignified and elderly lady she'd only just met for assistance and figure out some way of paying Missus Duane back, which had been a little adventure in itself. The dresser, the shelves, and the decorations on the wall were mostly...

"Rose, get your self a-moving. Michael will be waiting for us in ten!" the Doctor called through the TARDIS. She grabbed up a thick robe and towel and rushed into the 'plumbing cabin.' (Apparently for all the other conveniences that the flying police-call box could easily afford them, managing running water and drains were still extremely tricky and the Doctor had only managed them in one particular compartment, which led to its own set of interesting moments.) Somewhat to her own surprise, it was only fifteen minutes later when she emerged into the control cabin of the TARDIS, freshly scrubbed, hair and makeup arranged just so, wearing a faded pink t-shirt and cutoff jeans. Somehow she knew better than to hope that the Doctor would appreciate that feat of time management.

Michael seemed somewhat impressed, though. (Maybe Maria was as fussy about getting ready to go herself.) As they emerged from the TARDIS, which had been parked between the corner of Michael's building and the parking lot, he started talking about how long he would be able to work that morning, between getting up before six thirty and having a first period free at school. And then that got him started on other scheduling issues.

"Max called Brody Davis, that's his new boss at the UFO center, about leaving the convention early, and it seems like things don't look so good," Michael told the Doctor mostly, though he didn't seem to mind Rose hearing. "And that got Liz worried about getting out of her shifts at the Cafe, and apparently Kyle's dad does have to work the day shift Saturday, some last minute change. So we won't have a full complement until around Saturday evening. Myself, I didn't even have a shift at the cafe after this morning, until Monday after school. I'm not sure which way Maria will want to go."

"So, where does that leave all of our plans, Michael?" the Doctor asked softly. "I don't suppose Rose and I would mind waiting around and seeing more of the convention..."

"Well, there's the thing," Michael continued. "This first leg of the journey, I don't figure that we really need the whole gang along. Anybody who wants to can hitch a lift with you - Isabel and Alex almost certainly, myself and Kyle, maybe Maria - and the two of you. You're the one who really knows what research is necessary, and we'll come along so that we can start to get the hang of working with you, and learn things which we can use to help the others acclimate. Then we blip back to Roswell at 9 pm tomorrow, to pick up the others. Do you think that you can handle that one?"

"Hmm." The Doctor considered this carefully. "Doing such precise time landings always seems to be asking for some trouble, but yes, I think that I and my TARDIS are up for trying it if the rest of you are. We'll be making for Kaalto township for our initial research stop, by the way. It's not far from Earth, actually, and they'll be in the loop somewhat about Antarian matters, and have a decent historical library. Max has - has already participated in the Six-worlds summit by this point, yes?"

"Wha - did Isabel or Alex mention that?"

"No," the Doctor said. "I was doing a bit of reading last night, and I found a treatment of the Kivarian war and the history of Antar in this century, which mentioned it. Wouldn't have guessed that the 'Earthling hybrid' who represented for the Liarets was a Roswellian until I'd met you all, but after speaking with Max, it seemed clear that he would have been the one. I only asked to be sure that you knew about the other four great planets in the Antarian sphere, actually, the ones that sent delegates."

"Oh, yeah. They're mentioned by name in the book translation, though I can never remember. One's pretty good and friendly, the one that Larek is from, and one is about as nasty as Kivar through and through, and the other two are mostly neutral. Don't think that any of them are called Kaalto though."

"No," the Doctor agreed patiently. "But - well, I think that the one most friendly to the Liarets is Rahlicx, and Kaalto is a much more distant and smaller colony of Rahlicx."

"Sounds good," Michael agreed. "Why not - was it Landorin? The other place that you mentioned last night?"

"Um, yes - Landorin wasn't nearly as inconspicuous or inconsequential in the civil war as I had supposed," the Doctor said. "There would be possibilities of the three of you being recognized, and other potential complications, if we arrived there out of the blue. Wouldn't do at all for our research stop, which is supposed to be a safe and quiet small place where we can get our bearings. In fact, depending on what I learn at Kaalto, I might find that our best bet for finding Tess and the Granolith would be on Landorin, instead of going to Antar again, but that's not certain, and we've got a trip into Antar's past to make first."

"You know, if we're breaking up our trips anyway, why not make all three seperate hops, with a return to Roswell after that second leg?" Rose suddenly suggested. "I realize that we probably won't be able to get the kids away for a few days after a Sunday night return, but - but they'll all have a lot of stuff to ponder over after we get back from the past. We might, too, comes to that."

"Hmm." The doctor considered that as they crossed the street. (They were walking downtown, since Michael didn't really have an auto, just his bike.) "Maybe. What would you say to that, Mikey boy?"

"Don't call me that," was Michael's immediate reaction, and Rose giggled. "Yeah, that sounds workable. We could do the last trip on an overnight, actually - or try to, if those of us saddled with parents can find a way to keep them from freaking out about pulling all-nighters."

"Oh, come on, are American parents really so overprotective?" Rose asked. "You're seniors, only two months away from graduating high school. Mum wasn't hovering over me that much when I was your age."

"Yes, but your mum's a..." Rose shot a warning glance at the Doctor, and he wisely clamped it shut.

"Well, I'm not sure about how representative my friends' parents are, nationally," Michael said with a chuckle. "Miz DeLuca is actually surprisingly chill sometimes, but the others - we've put them through a lot, I guess, and it makes them worry more, not less."

"Yes, I suppose I see how that could happen," Rose agreed. "Well, we'll sort it all out somehow."

"You could always take a side jaunt, and meet up with us on another weekend," Michael suggested. "It's a bit too bad that you showed up later than Spring Break actually. That would have been good timing."

"Never let it be said that my timing is _that_ good," the Doctor drawled lazily, setting Rose off laughing again.

#

A number of notes and whispered conversations made the rounds at West Roswell High that day, and the initial plan, more or less as Michael had proposed it, went through consensus and received Max's ceremonial seal of approval, and so that afternoon after school, Alex and Isabel, Michael and Maria and Kyle gathered at Michael's place. The Doctor had mentioned to Michael just before he left for second period to tell everybody to 'pack light', but the girls especially hadn't been sure just how extremely to take that. "This is an alien planet that we might be spending days at, with a completely unfamiliar culture and fashions and society and technology," Isabel had pointed out to Michael when he expressed surprise at the size of her carry-on suitcase. "And where we won't have any money, as far as we know. I've taken the very minimum that I could to assure myself of some kind of comfort. Get off my..."

"Hey, I was just commenting," Michael quickly insisted. "I'm not on your case - or anything else."

Now the five of them were waiting in the vicinity of the TARDIS, with no immediate sign of Rose or the Doctor in the vicinity. "Hey, does something seem weird about the parking lot, honey?" Maria asked Michael, her nose scrunching up just slightly as she thought.

Michael looked - and immediately grew upset. "Frickin' hell, somebody jacked my bike?" Sure enough, the motorcycle was nowhere to be seen, and there was not even any trace of the locking chain around the solid metal rack that had been provided for him to fasten it to.

"Are you sure, honey?" Maria asked, stepping close to him. "You didn't just forget and park it somewhere else?"

Michael turned to stare at her. "No - you were right here with me when we came home last night, and I locked it up. I didn't touch it since then - I walked to the Crashdown with Rose and the Doctor, took the city bus from there to school, and you gave me a lift home in the Jetta." He groaned morosely. "And now if we're going to make our 'trip', I'm not even going to be able to try to track the punks down, or file a report with Sheriff Hanson or anything..."

"I think somebody just presumed to borrow it," Alex said, pointing out at the street. Sure enough, the bike was approaching, being ridden by a man in a brown suit, with a pretty girl in a pink t-shirt and cutoffs riding behind him. Both were wearing protective helmets, but the girl had apparently not chosen to roll her hair up under the helmet, because a curtain of golden strands was flying out behind her.

Maria held to Michael's left hand tight, and Isabel stepped near him from the other side, trying to calm him down and keep him from absolutely losing his temper. "Great bike, Mister Guerin," the Doctor said respectfully once he had brought it to a stop in its usual parking spot. "Hope you don't mind that we took a spin - somebody at the museum mentioned this Air Force base out near the Crash site this morning, and we couldn't resist riding out to take a look."

"How - how did you even," Kyle started, but the question became irrelevant. Once both he and Rose had climbed off the bike, the Doctor bent down to reattach the locking chain, but instead of locking it in the usual fashion, the Doctor used his sonic screwdriver. Obviously he had done the same thing to detach the chain in the first place.

"He - um, he gets very protective of that bike," Maria blurted out. "And we didn't know that it was you, he just realized that it was gone and..."

"Oh, oh so sorry, that really was thoughtless of me," the Doctor said, shaking his head slightly at Michael. "Forgive my impertinence?"

"Umm, well..." was all that Michael could manage immediately.

"I should have at least left a note," he finished, and then headed off to open the TARDIS doors. "Alright, we've got our co-ordinates for first stop already - all aboard!"

Rose shot her Doctor a firm look, but there really wasn't anything to say as the Roswell kids grabbed what bags they'd brought and filed into the console room. "Alright, umm... here we are, might as well get settled to enjoy the ride, but give the Doctor plenty of room," Rose advised the five of them.

"It certainly looks really cool," Kyle volunteered. "Is there anything you can tell us about the TARDIS that we'll understand?"

"It goes 'whoosh-whoosh', disappears from here and appears somewhere else, and this is where the Doctor controls its travel," Rose joked back with a big grin. "Sometimes the trip as experienced from inside gets a bit - rocky, but since we're just going to another nearby planet, in our own time frame more or less, I don't imagine this jaunt'll get too rough. What do you think, Doctor?"

"It's hard to give any absolute guarantees, but unless there's an unmapped neutron star somewhere in this sector - yeah, we should be alright," the Doctor said, already starting to work on the console. "Are you sure that you don't want to give them the full six-pound-fifty tour?"

"Not right this second, no," she said. "There'll be time for that - though I guess. Well, I hadn't thought about this, but we'll need to find rooms for everybody when we get where we're going, right? When it's just a few of us we can all stay in the TARDIS, but there's no living quarters for - for seven people, is there?"

"Not the last time I counted rooms, no," the Doctor agreed dryly. "Now, Max and Liz, Mister Valenti and Maria's mum, there'll be waiting for us here tomorrow night at eight-thirty, right?"

"Yeah, and you'd better not muff your landing time and keep them waiting all night," Maria shot back.

"Fair enough," came the reply, and the TARDIS took off.

It was indeed a fairly smooth ride, though rather exciting nonetheless. There was still a wormhole that the TARDIS seemed to be travelling through, even if the Doctor usually referred to those as temporal wormholes. It reached out fairly straight with only gentle curves, and the Doctor seemed to be trying very hard to navigate the TARDIS through it without ever touching the edges once - she couldn't make out if this was actually an important safety concern in this particular wormhole, or if he was doing it to amuse himself and test his piloting skill. (Normally it never seemed to matter how many times they caromed and rebounded.)

The full 'flight' took about three or four minutes according to Rose's watch, and she rather thought that the Doctor had won his test and flown them through without a single bump at the end - at least, not one severe enough for her to have noticed it certainly. As they came in for the 'landing' she heard the whoosh-whoosh sound of the TARDIS phasing into a new resting place, and this time she decided to wait for the Doctor to emerge from the TARDIS door first. He took his time about securing all of the console controls first, and then led the way out.

"Umm, hello, I'm the Doctor, and... well, I'm sorry, but it didn't seem like anyone was using this spot. Terribly sorry about the table - but tell you what, I've got a sonic screwdriver, and I'll see what I can do about fixing it when we're ready to go."

Rolling her eyes, Rose headed out the door herself, gesturing to the five Roswell kids that they should stay inside until they were signalled. The room they were in was about one and a half times as wide as the TARDIS was, more than twice that long, with a high ceiling, at least four meters, so that the police call box had plenty of clearance that way. There had been, however, a long table running straight down the middle of the room, and part of this had been broken off - snapped and crushed downward, it seemed, exactly as if the TARDIS had come down on it in a vertical landing, instead of simply materializing in place. She'd never really thought of what would happen if something occupied the space that the TARDIS was taking - had assumed that security protocols would always make sure that such a thing couldn't happen, actually. It seemed that like many things, the TARDIS' security safeguards were impressive but not foolproof.

Just what would such a large table be used for, and a room like this? A dining table for feeding many people? No - something bugged her about the layout, and then Rose got it - it was a huge boardroom, suitable for a huge conference meeting. So either they had landed in a great business company headquarters or... "Is this the planetary government?"

"You got it, lady," one of the pleasant-looking, (if upset,) humanoid aliens snapped sarcastically at her - talking in his own language of course, but it sounded like English thanks to the TARDIS' influence. "Township administration, at any rate, which is as close to 'planetary' as we get here. Want to see our justice department?"

"No, I'm sorry about the circumstances, but I really don't think that pressing charges is the answer," the Doctor said, extending a familiar piece of paper. "Here are my credentials."

The first native, (Kaaltan?) glanced at the psychic paper, and made a fiercely annoyed sound. "Unless I'm supposed to have very different eyes, that's no good mister. Looks entirely blank to me."

The Doctor took the psychic paper back, flashing it, and a worried look at Rose. She nodded encouragingly - she could see the detail clearly - the english words '_Senate Auditor_', with the doctor's picture in the top right corner, and what looked like his fingerprints and maybe a retinal image on a watermarked background - it seemed enormously official and well-researched to her. But apparently psychic tricks weren't working on these people - maybe it was because they were of the Antarian species?

"Okay, let's try something else," the Doctor snapped. "Have any of you heard of the Time Lords?"

There was several moment's silence before the Kaaltan closest to the door raised his hand. "Yes, I've heard the legends. Kids stuff, about time travellers showing up places in - in ships that are smaller on the outside, and just appear wherever they please..."

"Maybe we'd better take you to see the Governor," another native near the front of the group suggested.

"I think I can handle that," the Doctor said. "But my entourage is bigger than it seems, and we'd probably better all come together - at least, at first. We won't need to all crowd into the Governor's office."

So Rose knocked on the door, and the Roswell kids filed out. "You know," the first Kaaltan mentioned as he started to lead the way out of the room, "before you mentioned Time Lords, I sort of had the notion that you might be an inspector from the Rahlicx senate. You know, with a surprise audit or something."

The Doctor shot Rose a surprised look, and she just nodded back, not sure what any of this meant. It wasn't long before they were led to the Governor's office, (they must have inteed arrived deep within the colony's Administration offices,) and after they were left at the waiting chairs outside, there was a few minutes of hurried whispering, and then the Governor herself, with short, electric blue hair tightly curled, announced in a ringing voice, "I will meet with this Time Lord alone - none of his motley crew of Companions."

The Doctor turned to Rose to ask her to wish him luck, (which she daringly did with an innocent kiss,) and then made his entry into the mid-size office. The six humans were left alone, without even guards to keep them company, and Rose immediately turned to address Isabel and Michael. "The doctor has something that he calls psychic paper - it can make whoever looks at it see what he wants them to see there - it's usually very helpful in getting us established in a new or unfamiliar situation. But this time - we've come across people who are resistant to psychic powers before, and they usually recognize the paper for what it is, a trick. That guy - he said that he thought it was blank, but the idea of what was on the paper occured to him, hardly a moment later. Does that make any sense to you, with what you know of Antarians?"

The two of them exchanged looks, and then Isabel nodded. "I have what you might call a psychic power, but it orients on the subconscious mind most of the time - I can enter people's dreams, with a picture of them. Occasionally weve gotten it to work with somebody awake, but it still seemed somewhat - subliminal, not something that they were highly aware of. Maybe that's something generally true about the Antarian mind and how it relates to psychic powers."

"Okay," Rose said, seeing it. "Well, if we can count on the paper working subliminally, then we should still be able to get some use out of it, as long as we adjust our strategy."

"I'd be very careful, though," Alex warned. "If the mental connection is conscious to subconscious, then the worst thing is if it reverses - the subject consciously sees something that you have deep down in the back of your mind, maybe something you didn't want them to know about."

"Oh, yes," Rose said, seeing it, and being reminded of her first meeting with Captain Jack. "That would not be good."

"And it looks like the 'Time Lord' bit is working so far," Kyle pointed out. "Might as well see how far we can get with that instead of trying another gambit."

"Yes, I suppose so," Rose agreed, smiling at him.

#

"The stories of the Time Lords are nearly forgotten in this sector of space," the Governor said, after offering the Doctor a beverage and completing the other pleasantries.

"I'm sorry to hear that," the Doctor admitted. "I'm glad that some of your people, at least, could recognize what they had come across."

"Not that I'm really serious about this part, but do you have any particular proof that you are, indeed, a Time Lord?"

"If you know of anything other than a TARDIS that could have materialized inside your conference room, I'd like to know about it," the Doctor shot back. "And even in the old stories, is it not true that only a Time Lord can pilot their TARDIS?"

"Not exactly airtight logic, but we'll move on," Governor Isthin continued. "The key point, I suppose, is what you want with us."

"My students and I are on a historical research project. We will need some accomodations, nothing too fanciful, and access to the historical library at your college."

The governor considered this for a moment. "And do you have anything to trade for these requirements?"

"There have been and will be times," the Doctor said coldly, "when much more than this would be offered as a free token of friendship to a Time Lord - and when the Time Lords would move worlds and save civilizations as signs of gratitude for small favors."

"Yes," the Governor snapped. "And also times when civilizations who valued friendship with the Time Lords were wiped out utterly. Would you care to shed any light on _those_ episodes?"

Many lifetimes worth of pain clouded the Doctor's eyes. "Just about what you would expect," he muttered. "Enemies not only of my people but of the forces of life and freedom themselves - targeting allies of our side as the opening preparations to battle. If you wish an exchange, I will see what I can do, though I do not arrive weighted down with treasures or trade goods. I have some knowledge of my own that I might be able to fairly trade for the knowledge I seek. As far as hospitality goes..."

But the governor, struck by what she had seen in the doctor's face, was already backpedalling. "We don't need to concern ourselves about that just now. I will make certain that arrangements are made for your students, and you will be invited to eat with the high council tonight, if it so please you. The college is a semi-independent organization, not beholden to my government, so you may need to negotiate with them yourself, but I will arrange a meeting and convey my sentiment that you should be granted access. Is this sufficient?"

The Doctor stared at her for a moment, then nodded gravely. "Quite sufficient. Would it be advisable for me to move the TARDIS from your conference room?"

She blinked. "Umm, I wouldn't think so. We won't be needing it for several days, at least... how long do you think your project will take?"

This stopped the Doctor short. "Only three or four days, I suppose, at the most. But - well, it might actually be better for the TARDIS doors to be more convenient to the other rooms."

"I'm not certain how many sufficient open spaces we have in the secure residential levels..." She sighed weightily. "But I imagine that something can be worked out."

#

"Alright, you'll be just down here," on of the Kaaltan attendants said, leading the five of them through a doorway. (The Doctor and Rose had returned to the TARDIS to see if they could home in on an available space to re-park it, and Alex was starting to feel just a bit jumpy about being here without them and hoping to see them again soon.) "There are quarters here that will sleep one or two people comfortably - will you all require your own private rooms?"

The same notion struck them all at the same time - Alex met Isabel's eyes, as Maria clutched Michael's arm excitedly. Kyle just groaned softly to himself. "Umm - I think that my friend Alex and I can share a double room," Isabel said.

"We'll be together too," Maria and Michael chimed in nearly in unison. "I think that Kyle will be happy by himself," Maria added.

"Very well, let's see - if it's alright for me to ask, are you mated pairs? Married, or formally committed, I mean?"

"Umm - not anything terribly formal - we're... we're in love, and hope to progress to a formal commitment in a few years," Alex said. "That's the way things are generally done - where we come from."

"I - I see," the attendant said after a moment, and led them past a number of doors, without really volunteering a reason why. Were these rooms that were more suited for platonic companions than young lovers, in his opinion? Finally, around the end of a fifty foot long hallway, he opened up a door and presented the key to Maria.

"Hmm..." Maria poked her head in, and visibly struggled not to make a face. There was a comfortable looking bed, something like a queen-size, but that was just about the only attractive amenity - no windows, (those would probably be hard to find in such an underground community as this,) nothing at all like ensuite bathroom facilities, and a very small storage press.

Michael hesitated just a moment, looking over Maria's shoulder, and squeezed her arm reassuringly. Maria nodded. "Great, thanks," she said, hefting her bag and walking in. "Ten minutes to unpack and, umm, and settle in, and then we'll meet up again?"

"Sure," Alex told her. Quickly the guide opened up the room next door - which was rather different, with thick carpeting, risers, a sort of a shallow depression in the middle of the floor with a mattress in the center, and something that looked like a cross between a cocoon and a double sleeping bag on the mattress. What furniture there was seemed to be built into the walls, all at least five feet up. Isabel and Alex shared a look, and Alex shrugged good-naturedly.

"We'll take it," Isabel said with a bit of forced good cheer. Alex led the way in to explore, but kept ahold of her hand.

Eight minutes later, they came back out and met Kyle coming out of his own room. "What's your place like, Kyle?" Alex asked him.

"And what happened to our native - friend?" Isabel asked.

"He had other stuff to do," Kyle pointed out.

"Did he happen to mention where the bathroom facilities were?" Maria asked. As Kyle immediately began to rattle off directions, (he generally had a very good memory for stuff like that,) Alex sidestepped around the young athlete and poked his head into Kyle's room - which was by all odds much fancier and more 'normal' than either of the doubles, looking like it wouldn't be too out of place in a cheap motel or college dormitory, except for a few unrecognizable gizmos on the desk - and something a bit fake about the sunshine through the frosted 'window.' Oh well. Isabel's company would certainly matter more to him than anything else, for the few days that they'd be staying here.

"Well, hello my friends, and how are the local lodgings?" an upbeat British accent rang out, and Alex backed away to join his friends. The Doctor and Rose had just returned - in fact, they had apparently just stepped out of the TARDIS, except...

"Where's the rest of your ship?" Maria said, pointing at the doors of the police call box - which were only a foot from the hallway, if that. "You didn't drive it through the wall and into whoever's room is on the other side there?"

"No," Rose said, with a little wave hello. "He explained it all to me. Since the TARDIS can travel in time, it can also be used to fold space and play tricks with it. It's always been bigger inside than outside, like the magic wardrobe. Now it's just smaller outside than it used to be, or something like that."

"I put most of its outside inside the inside," the Doctor agreed with a merry laugh. "So what about your places?"

"They're alright," Michael said casually. "Now, you said something about dinner?"

"Yes, travelling across light-years does tend to give a man an appetite, doesn't it?" the Doctor agreed, clapping Michael on the back. "And I'll need to put in an appearance at this ceremonial council banquet - don't know what it's about, but whatever. Now, I'd like at least one or two of you to put in an appearance with me, but it'll be fairly dull and a bit hard to follow even with the translations I expect - and they might not be wild about finding seats for the entire crew. There'll be communicators inside your rooms, I'm sure, and you can get some food sent up - or ask for directions to a community diner if you're feeling up for meeting the locals."

"I'm with you," Rose insisted quickly. "Got all dressed up for it Antarian-style, as nearly as I could." She was wearing a definitely exotic rose-pink dress outfit that had short sleeves and fell all the way to her ankles.

"I'll come too, leave the fab foursome to their own devices," Kyle decided quickly. "Hate being a fifth wheel."

"Oh, and that's so much better than being a third wheel," Isabel stage-whispered. Kyle shrugged. The Doctor shot a look at Isabel, then turned to consider Rose and Kyle, and nodded just a bit. Rose looked slightly flustered, but also thoughtful at the same time.

"Okay, this way," the Doctor said, leading the way down the corridor, and gesturing for Rose and Kyle to follow him. Maria looked from Isabel to Alex.

"So, what do you want to do?" Michael asked.

"Our room looks good for getting together in," Isabel decided. "I - I'd rather not face a diner full of aliens - we don't know what their usual mores are for privacy in a public situation. Though I'm not wild about the thought of just ordering in some food and being stuck with what we get either."

"It'll be okay - more or less," Michael said. "Probably a lot of sweet and spicy stuff, if our tastes relative to humans are any indication." Maria made a bit of a face. "And we'll do our best to find something good for you guys."

"So what do we ask for, when we find the right number to call?" Alex asked. "Just food? The Doctor never said anything straight out, but I kind of got the impression that we shouldn't say anything about being humans from Earth, or any of the Royal Four stuff."

"Ask if they have any idea what to serve for visitors from faraway planets in general," Maria suggested. "They probably get a few travellers across the galaxy here, and probably not all of them will be able to explain what their usual tastes are. They'll have some idea of what's fairly inoffensive."

"I'm not sure if there's any universals in those terms," Isabel pointed out. "But maybe we'll be able to explain in general terms. Humans are - they're technically omnivores, but there's got to be some better technical term for it, to explain the exceptions, right?"

"Maybe we shouldn't go into so much detail," Alex said, as he went into their room to look for something like a phone or a walkie-talkie.


	4. Chapter 4

In a sizable room, many and many people were feasting and making themselves merry. Of course, the term 'people' might be considered misleading under the circumstances. Most of them didn't appear to be human in the slightest at the moment.

There were contingents who were singing the songs of battles and victories on distant planets - not all of them in tune, or agreeing on which lyrics to use at what time. Fantastically exotic dishes and roasts were laid upon the tables. At the head table, a lively debate was raging over the legitimacy of the reign of a particular Galactic emperor, and the historical circumstances of his downfall.

Sitting at the far left end of that table, keeping to himself, Max Evans reflected how tired he was of the pageantry of the annual UFO convention in Roswell, New Mexico, and how he wished that he really was off with his friends on another planet. Then the slight surreality of that sentiment hit him and a string of laughter escaped from him, which earned him a few dirty looks from the true believers who didn't think that there was anything funny about their conversation.

He attempted to console himself by scanning the UFO center of a glimpse of Liz, since just seeing her always made him feel better. She had applied for a spot waiting on the dinner, since the money was better than she'd likely get at the Crashdown, and her parents had enough temporary help to last them through the night, even without Maria and Michael being there. Max did spot her dark hair, wearing the black dress that had been provided as uniform, but she was across most of the tables, hard to spot among the other people who occasionally stood up or walked between tables, and he couldn't catch her eye because she was so busy delivering new treats and clearing away old dirty dishes of various descriptions. He'd have to wait until the dinner was done. It was so frustrating - there wasn't even really any reason for him to be there, it wasn't like the conversation up here was anything that Brody needed him for in order to make a good impression.

Soon enough, though, Brody Davis had gotten up and made a short but upbeat speech about the drive for truth and open-ness of mind that had brought them all to Roswell for the convention, and after the chocolate ice cream flambee had been served, there really wasn't that much to keep Liz and the rest of the wait staff. Once they were alone together, in the alley behind the building, Max pulled his beloved lady close to him for a kiss that he expected to be hotter than a solar flare - but after just a second he could tell that some part of her, (mind, heart, soul, whichever,) wasn't really in her response. "Okay, what is it?"

"Oh, I - I'm really sorry, I miss you too, and you really do make me feel..." Liz couldn't seem to find a word to end that thought, and settled for an excited shiver that did make Max's ego feel considerably better. "But I was just wondering about... well, our friends, Maria and Alex and Kyle and Michael and Isabel."

"If you're worried about them - well, of course, I am too," Max pointed out. "But until the agreed on rendezvous time, there really isn't any point in dwelling on worry, or trying to check up on them."

Liz smiled a huge smile, and Max suddenly realized that she thought she knew something that he didn't know - not a terribly rare thing for her to do, Max realized. "So you might think. But - well, I guess I didn't mention this. Michael passed me Rose's cell phone number in English class today."

"Yeah, so? If she's out of cell coverage range herself, what good will that..." Max trailed off, suddenly remembering something. "Oh, right, she mentioned something about that, when she was using the phone to try calling the Doctor last night, but I guess I didn't realize exactly what that meant. She can call anybody or have anybody call her, no matter where?"

"Yeah, something like that," Liz agreed. "I'm not sure if it's compatible with the local communication systems of every planet in every galaxy, but definitely if we call from here, she'll get it - no matter what planet she's on or what era in time. The Doctor installed some kind of expansion card that routes the calls through the TARDIS systems, she said."

Max considered that for a moment, and took out his cell phone. "Then I won't have to pay for long distance, I guess?"

"I wouldn't be surprised if it doesn't automatically add itself to your free calling plan - but don't quote me on that. You wanna give it a try?"

"Hmm." Max took a look at the slip of notebook paper that Liz presented him with, tapped the numbers into the phone's keypad, (more numbers than he'd need for an ordinary US call, but not that many more,) and then passed the phone off to Liz without hitting the green talk key. She nodded at him, raised the phone close to her ear, (and posing so that Max could bend close and listen in if he chose to,) and connected the call.

It rang for maybe seven or eight times, each a distinctive brr-brr that was probably the usual English land line ring thing, and then finally a voice came. "Hello, Lizzie? Is that you, dear?"

"Um, uh, yes, actually," Liz said. "Nice to hear your voice..."

"Yes, it's nice to hear from you too, but you'll have to speak up, hun." Now Liz heard the din coming through as background noise, a racket that seemed oddly familiar to her, and realized that Rose was nearly shouting into her end of the phone. "Was there anything you wanted? I'm sort of busy over here."

"No, umm - just wanted to call, and check in, make sure that you'd arrived okay," Liz said. "And our friends."

"Yes, we're fine - the Doctor and Kyle and I are at a banquet," Rose explained. "The rest of your friends are all together - shall I go find them as soon as I'm able and call you back?"

"Yes, of course, certainly," Liz agreed. So that was familiar about the noise. She and Max had been in a fake alien banquet, Rose was at the real thing - but the noise seemed to be just about the same. "Tell Kyle hi from me, and we'll wait for your call. Thanks."

"You're very welcome, Liz. Until then." It was easy to tell when the line was disconnected because of the background noise of the banquet suddenly stopping. L:iz looked up to Max, wondering how much of the conversation, especially Rose's side, he might have heard.

"They've arrived alright?" he asked with a smile, and that gave her her cue, as Max must have intended.

"Yes, and Rose will call your phone back, when she's free to talk and back with everybody - I guess they split up," Liz said, not wanting to go into all the details about the banquet yet. "So I guess I need to stay close to you until your phone rings again, if we can manage that."

"I'm sure I won't have a problem with that," Max said, pulling her close.

"And not get so, um, distracted with anything, that neither of us will even hear the phone ring," Liz continued with a slight smile on her face. Max raised an eyebrow at her.

In point of fact, they didn't have that long to wait before that phone rang again - they agreed to go back to Max's place, (though he'd have to drive her back downtown before the evening was over, really,) and he was just about to pull into the driveway when the familiar ringtone sounded. Liz felt sure that this was somebody else entirely, maybe Davis with a new Convention-related emergency or Maria's mother calling to harangue them for letting the others leave.

"Hello?" Max said, picking up the phone once his Jeep was no longer quite blocking the way and its front wheels, at least, were on the driveway of his parent's house. "Yes, hi Rose, I'm a bit surprised to hear from you so quickly, are you okay? ...Yes, of course, I'd love to hear from Michael, but - wait a second. Nearly two hours? Are you sure?" He put the phone down slightly and turned to Liz, who had already gone to check her own watch. "How long has it been since..."

"Fifteen minutes, maybe twenty." She shrugged. "I know that they're not supposed to be travelling in time yet, but it's a faster than light signal. Who can tell if it's supposed to react the same as a local call?"

Max just nodded - and returned his attention to the phone, because Michael's voice was cearly coming out of it now, though Liz couldn't quite make out what he was saying, just his identity. "Hey yourself, man - we just - well, Liz and I didn't quite make it back to my place. How's Kaalto - did you think much of alien-style dinner?"

#

"This is a good idea," Alex admitted, perching himself on the edge of the bed in Michael and Maria's room. One of the 'alien things' that he hadn't much noticed on his first look through the room turned out to be a holographic display tied into the communicator system, and in addition to more obvious uses, (like showing the face of somebody that they were talking to,) it was apparently capable of scrolling through a sort of room-service menu with three dimensional full color, so that they could attempt to judge what might be appetizing before ordering.

Of course, even though sight was a bit better than names, it still wasn't the best sense for making those determinations. Sadly, though, the room was not equipped with smell-o-vision, so they were making do.

"Yeah. Hey, does that look promising?" Maria said, pausing on one particular image before clicking along. "A bit like a deep-dish pie with chicken and - and blue peppers, I guess, but still."

"Okay, yeah, add it to the list to try," Michael agreed. "Maybe blue peppers are great."

"Alright, just a second." Isabel had found a sort of touch-sensitive clipboard and was making notes on their 'list' by dragging her fingernail across it to leave a mark that would apparently last until someone pushed the 'clear' button down hard for a few seconds. "Garben dur fallizi. I hope that the TARDIS translation effect works well enough that we can be understood just be pronouncing the text that we see, for things like this."

"I would think it'll be fine," Alex said. "If it couldn't, or wasn't working at all on names of things that Earth doesn't have words for, then we'd see an alien alphabet after all, not Latin letters spelling out something that sounds a bit food-like."

"Worst comes to worst, we'll summon someone in here and point at the pictures," Maria agreed. "Okay, so what do we have already?" Isabel opened her mouth. "No, I don't really want the list of names that don't mean anything to me."

"There was the triangular bread," Michael rhymed off, "yellow drink, bowls of orange porridge, and... and the red pancakes. I think that was about it."

"Do we need anything else?" Alex asked.

"Maybe something that looks a bit meaty," Isabel suggested. "I mean, everything else, except for the possibly-chicken on the pizza, is more on the starchy side. Wouldn't hurt to try for some veggies, actually." Michael let out an impassioned groan. "Or fruits at least."

Maria started jumping around from section to section of the menu blindly, (since she couldn't make out on what basis it was organized,) and they completed the list with pink bacon and small black things that would be larger than cherries and smaller than apples. Alex took the list from Isabel and went over to the communicator to talk with someone in the Township kitchen.

"Ahh, alright, that's one problem solved," Michael declared, lying back in satisfaction and stretching himself out on the bed for the first time. "Oooh, and another one discovered, maybe. Honey, give this mattress a try, but very carefully. Maybe we shoulda done this before we took the room."

"What, what could be wrong with it?" Maria said, stepping over. "It looks like a fine bed."

"Just stretch yourself out on it. There's something about the mattress, or what would be a mattress in an Earth bed, I dunno even what to say about it, except..."

Maria considered the bed far more dubiously this time, and crept onto it a little bit at a time, first resting one leg and hand on the edge, then arranging herself on her hands and knees on top of the bed, and ever so gradually lowering herself down to a lying position, stomach downwards. Almost immediately she shot a little ways back up, and tried to arrange herself again, curled up on her side as if she were spooning somebody invisible. The look on her face was immensely dissatisfied.

"Yeah, I, umm, I kinda see what you mean." Quickly Maria arranged herself into a sitting position crosslegged on the bed. "This is fine, but - it's like there's crossbeams and water pockets inside, and - and whatever principles they're based on, they do _not_ work happily with my body."

"Yeah, that's it," Michael said. "Isabel, did you or Alex check yours?"

Isabel had been watching all of this display anxiously from the desk, where she'd gone to switch off the visual menu. "No, umm... I didn't, and I didn't see Alex do anything like that. Not sure that he'd have had time to."

"To do what?" Alex called from the other side of the bed.

"Are you done with the order?" Maria asked him.

"Just, err, just waiting for a confirmation on how long it'd take with the pizza. I didn't ask for an ETA straight out, but they wanted me to stay on until they could tell me, so..."

"Okay, that's fine," Michael said. "It's just, there's something weird about the beds, and we might need to - ohh." Alex had put up his hand, and as Michael trailed off they realized that somebody was speaking over the room communicator again.

"Thank you, that'll be fine," Alex said, and turned away. "Nearly half an hour. I, umm, I did ask about delivering some of the quicker stuff first, but I guess they don't want to make a lot of trips."

"Oh," Isabel said, her face falling. "I, well, I understand how they feel, and I'm not so hungry that I can't last half an hour, but... but what if we don't like any of what we've ordered?"

"Then we suck it up and go to the dining room, or anywhere else that's more convenient and close to the kitchen," Michael suggested.

"Yeah, I think that's only fair," Maria agreed. "But, Alex - did they really talk in terms of hours?"

"Yeah, that threw me for a moment too," Alex agreed. "Translation effect, I guess. I just hope that it's not referring to a local unit of time that's more or less comparable to an hour, without doing a conversion."

"I guess we'll find out," Michael pointed out. "So what now?"

"We go and test drive our bed," Isabel said, reaching out to Alex for his hand. He offered it quickly enough, but raised one eyebrow in a silent question. "In terms of relaxation and general comfort, to start with, not actual sleep or - mutual affection, though we might try the latter out if there's so much time. Michael and Maria thought that theirs was - not good for sleeping on."

"Oh." Alex blinked. "I'd have thought something like a comfortable mattress would be universal, for humanoids."

"They overengineered it inside," Michael guessed. "Probably it's great for a native, but our bone structures and joints are out of tolerance."

"Ooh, I see," Alex managed as Isabel led him back out into the hall.

"What do we do about ours?" Maria asked Michael. "I mean, even if theirs is fine, they got lucky, and won't want to switch, unless it's a random thing that they don't notice. And if we ask for something else - then they may want to put us in a room that's far away, instead of moving new furniture in here. Heck, maybe if this is the normal thing, they don't _have_ any other kinds of mattresses."

"I - I don't know," Michael admitted, sliding close to her, (and feeling the discomfort as his bottom had to pass over a supporting rod,) and reaching out to stroke Maria's back comfortingly. "There'll be ways. For one thing, if they've got ropes, and straight rods, then we can work out something in the way of a hammock. This bedspread is crazy strong, it'd make a hammock fabric strong enough to take both of us together."

Maria turned to him, smiling a little, but her hazel eyes were still worried and a bit sad. "I've never tried a hammock except for summer camp when I was seven, and I didn't like it then."

"There'll be something," Michael insisted. "I could try using my powers to 'fix' this thing... or if that doesn't work, umm... oh, I know! The doctor's screwdriver. He can fix just about anything with that, I can tell. We'll just ask him as soon as they get back from their banquet."

"Right, okay," Maria said, letting out a long-held breath. "We'll have to tell Kyle to check his mattress in the single room, too."

"Yep." Michael nodded firmly. "Okay, so then, do you wanna see if this holograph thing has a general orientation to the township, for visitors?"

"Umm, sure, okay." Maria brought out the remote again, turned the unit on, and tried an icon that she'd noticed before, that might represent someone speaking into a box. "Orientation information for Kaalto."

"Program has been found," the holo crystal announced after a few seconds, much to Michael's surprise that that trick actually worked. "Beginning play." And the display showed them a sort of a cave mouth, covered by a huge glass and steel door, as seen from far above, in the middle of a barren, almost airless landscape.

"Kaalto township was founded two hundred years ago," an announced informed them, "by the compliment of the Rahlicx hybrid exploration and colonization vessel 'Cherilew'. Cherilew was on a mission to discover an oxygen/water world which could be settled by Antarians without requiring pressurized living quarters and full environmental recycling, but it failed in this primary mission and was unable to return to a previously established base world when an accidental fuel tank leak compromised one of its engines and poisoned hundreds of sleeping would-be settlers in a cryogenic suspension bay. Rather than further risk the lives of the rest of his settlers, the Cherilew captain landed on the nearest stable world, which they had surveyed two days before the accident, and began working on a community site that could keep the frozen volunteers in the riskiest suspension bays alive. The first pressurized settlement on the planet, which was christened Kaltonin, was a silicon-plastic tent inflated with oxygen/nitrogen air, but..."

Before too long, Alex and Isabel returned, reporting that they also had issues with the mattress in their room, and Maria quickly mentioned Michael's hopes for the Doctor and his screwdriver to save the night. The four of them kept watching the educational show about this place that they had ended up, and time flew to such an extent that Maria was startled when their delivery guy knocked on the door.

"How long was it?" She asked as the various dishes were set down on a convenient end table. "Alex, did you check your watch?"

"Yeah, I did - um, let's see - around twenty-four or twenty-five minutes."

"Great," Isabel said, and nodded at the courier. "Thank you very much." He nodded back, an oddly contented smile on his face, and headed back out of the room. "And now, it is time for the moment of truth." Isabel used a double-edged steak knife like thing to cut a huge square 'slice' out of the pizza, and transferred it to one of the hard plates that had been provided. (It didn't feel like metal, or plastic, more like porcelain or something like that.) From the plate, she lifted it to her mouth, and took a large bite including both a pepper and a chunk of the toppings that had originally been guessed as chicken. "And it's good!" she announced, her mouth still full.

"Yay!" Alex cheered, throwing his arms in the air and shaking them around like a crazy man.

"The crowd goes wild," Maria chimed in, matching his actions. Michael looked at both of them like they were going nuts. "Hey, so what? It's been a kindof stressful evening, our first trip to an alien planet and all, so if the two of us want to blow off a little steam by acting silly and excited over little things when we're alone, what does it hurt?"

"Nobody at all... um, gets hurt, I mean," Isabel agreed, nodding firmly as she swallowed the last of her bite. "Come on, guys, have a try, but one warning. It doesn't really taste that much like pizza, somehow, though it _is_ good, or at least I liked it - and the blue peppers are incredibly spicy."

"Okay, well, let's see. I'll just start with bread, bacon, and drink," Alex said. "Umm, if I can figure out how to get a serving of this bread. It's such a big - loaf or whatever, that the knives won't go all the way through."

"Well, the hacksaw looks big enough," Michael pointed out. "Presumably it's here for some of the food, and I can't see anything else where it'd be helpful." So Alex tried hacking off a slice of triangular bread, which he found worked quite well.

Dinner turned out to be an almost unqualified success, despite the exotic and unfamiliar nature of most everything that they'd ordered. The bread, or 'darva,' was the only thing that did taste more or like what they were expecting, but at least two out of the four of them approved of each item. Michael was the only one who had a real disappointment, in that he found the beverage they'd selected very sweet and sticky, but he made do with a cupful of water from one of the 'fountains' in the bathroom down the hall, (once he had figured out how to keep the water from foaming with soapy cleaning suds.)

They had more or less finished eating, discussing if they should try searching for something else helpful or entertaining on the holocrystal, and debating the points of the various food items, when the door just _burst_ open and Rose hurried in, carrying her cell phone. "Well, hello there, nice that you didn't bother to knock," Isabel drawled. "Or - or is something actually an emergency?"

Rose dragged herself to a stop and reconsidered, smiling apologetically. "No, umm... not an emergency, no, and I'm sorry about just barging in like this," she muttered. "But, umm, but Liz called while we were still at the banquet, and I - well, I couldn't spend long talking with her. I - I told her that I'd call back, and let you guys talk with her and Max, as soon as I could - and this was 'as soon as I could.' She sounded a little bit concerned."

"It's somehow nice to know that she worries," Maria decided with a lazy smile. "Oh, hi Kyle. Kyle had just shown up at the door, presumably trailing behind Rose's dramatic entrance, and the Doctor wandered into view as well.

"Yeah, sure, give her a ring back," Alex urged. "I'd be happy to talk to either of them." There was a muted chorus of agreement with that, so Rose focused her attention on the phone for a few second - probably identifying the recent incoming call and initiating a callback. Then she put the speaker to her ear, waiting through the ringing, and brightened noticeably before opening her mouth.

"Hullo, Max?" There was a short pause. "Yes, I'm finally out of the banquet, so sorry that I kept you waiting, but - who do you want to talk with first? Your mate Michael is right here... Yes, waiting, it's been nearly two hours since Liz called, it has to be." Rose switched the phone to her other ear in order to more easily check her watch. "Yes, I'm sure, but it doesn't matter. Here's Michael." She shrugged and passed the phone over, and Michael took it immediately.

"Hey, man, how's Roswell doing?"

There was a slight pause before Michael heard anything other than the indistinct sounds of Max and Liz conferring about something, and then: "Hey yourself, man - we just - well, Liz and I didn't quite make it back to my place." There was a short pause. "How's Kaalto - did you think much of alien-style dinner?"

Michael laughed. "A bit strange but good - triangular bread that was actually pretty normal otherwise, this sort of shepherd's pie thing with hot blue peppers, pizza oatmeal, fluffy sausage cakes and sweet strawberry bacon."

"Interesting," Max said, with the tone of voice that suggested to Michael that he was filing the information away to ponder later - and discuss with Liz, of course. "Is there anything else important that's happened?"

"Not to us, except that the beds suck and we're going to have to figure out what to do about them. I'm actually a little more curious about what this banquet was like than in telling you our stories about getting dinner and rooms, and the little history documentary or whatever. Do you want anybody else?" Michael turned to look at his friends, to see if anybody was expressing interest. Maria waved her arm and mouthed something with excessive clarity. "Maria wants your girlfriend."

"Yeah, like there's anything new about that," Max said with a little laugh. "Well, give Isabel some brotherly love for me, and we'll see you in - I guess it'll be a few days for you, or longer, and less than a day for us, until we meet again. Hey!" Michael had been about to pass the phone to Maria, but he hesitated. "Maybe that's why there was a different time gap between the phone calls on each planet - because the Doctor already knows he's going to come back in time on the return trip, he wanted to make sure that if you ring us two hours before you leave, it won't come through after you've already gotten back here. I mean..."

"This stuff gets too complicated for me, Maxwell. Ask Liz about it once she's off the phone."

"Yeah, but - any idea how long you were there before Rose and the Doctor left for the banquet?"

"Couldn't have been more than two or three hours."

"Huh." While Max mulled that over, Michael finished the phone handoff, and went over to where Rose was already telling Isabel and Alex about the grand banquet that they had been the guests of honor at.

The Doctor interrupted her gently as Michael arrived, though. "You mentioned something wrong about the actual sleeping facilities?"

"Yes, the mattress on the bed," Michael agreed, waving back to the item in question - which Maria was sitting on the far edge of, unconcerned about it as long as she wasn't trying to actually lie down on it. "Umm..."

"Let me see." The Doctor immediately hurried over and actually jumped back-first onto the bed, which prompted Maria to turn around and look to see what had bounced it - but she must have realized that they were working on fixing the mattress, and got up to sit down in a chair of uncertain construction instead. "Actually, I feel fine and even, dare I say it, dandy." Michael groaned. "However, I'm not even partly human, and I think I can see what the problem might be if I were. The flexible gel packets inside shouldn't pose a problem, if we can simply get rid of the supportive rods, which as you may have discovered, support in the wrong places and the wrong ways for human bones, especially that spinal column of yours."

"Okay, so can you take them out?" Isabel asked him.

"Not entirely out of the bed, at least, not without creating an enormous mess," the Doctor shot back gaily. "But I believe that I can do something just about as good. Each rod is held in place by telescoping support staffs, and if we can adjust those telescopes, the rods will retract down into the bed to the point where you wouldn't notice them any more." Something about what he'd said struck the Doctor as significant, and he got up from his supine position to examine the headboard, foot, and sides of the bed in some detail. "You know, come to think of it, I wonder if there's a user-accessible control so that these rods can be adjusted without any more extraordinary methods. But if not, then they certainly should be amenable to my sonic screwdriver, as you might have been thinking, Michael - or to your own abilities."

No push-buttons or dials had been found on the bed by the time Maria had finished talking on the phone and offered it to Alex or Isabel, though, and the Doctor got his screwdriver and went to work. Michael considered trying to use his powers on the bed - and then decided just to let the Doctor handle things as long as he was comfortable with that.

"So, what about you, Kyle?" Alex asked. "Do you think you need to check your bed to see if you can handle it, or are you just going to take our words for it, or what?"

Kyle considered. "Well, I'll give it a try, but if it's not great, I don't think I need anybody to go in and futz with its workings. Actually, there's a spot on the other side of the room that would be great for stringing up a hammock, and I always kinda liked them, so I'll try that."

"Do you need any help getting one put together?" Michael suggested. "Or materials to work with, that kind of thing?"

"Sure, I guess," Kyle allowed. "If you're not going to be busy with your girl."

"So, making hammocks is a guys' club only thing?" Maria chimed in.

Kyle let his eyes roll up just slightly as he pondered this, and then admitted, "Yeah, pretty much. No girlses allowed."

"Not even Rose?" Isabel chimed in, and started to giggle.

"Isabel?" The Doctor looked up and fixed her with a fairly severe look, and for a moment she was feeling concerned. The Time Lord had a particular kind of authority that unnerved her like her teachers or parents never could. (Mister Valenti could occasionally match it, like that one time in Vegas...) "I'm sorry, it's just that I'd like to be turning in sometime before the early workers here start waking up. With that in mind, could you possibly come over and lend your powers to the bed repair effort? As soon as we're done with Michael and Maria's, we'll start on yours." His expression now was much more pleasant and friendly, if a bit tired.

"Umm, sure, okay," Isabel agreed. "What do you want me to do?"

"Come on, Kyle, Michael," Alex suggested. "Let's see what we can arrange in terms of a hammock."

"And leave the Doctor with all of the girls?" Michael pointed out with a smile of his own. But he went along with the other guys, after hugging Maria and whispering something in her ear. Maria looked after Michael as he left, and went over to sit with Rose and watch the Doctor and Isabel at work.

"So, what did you think of the banquet?" Maria asked Rose. "The food was all okay?"

"Mostly, there was some kind of spicy pudding that I didn't care for, but the finger meats were delish," Rose enthused. "I just wish that we could have stayed for the dancing." She shot a meaningful look over in the Doctor's direction, but he was bending over the mattress, pointing something out to Isabel, and didn't look up.

"Don't worry, there'll be another time and another ball, Cinderella," he said after a quiet moment, though, his voice full of promise and mischief.

#

"So, come on, Kyle, man," Alex said as he held out a metal post that they'd scrounged and the borrowed bedspread for Michael to start joining them together with his powers. "How'd it go at the banquet... with Rose?"

"Okay, so has everybody figured out that I want to jump her by this point?" Kyle asked with a good-natured smile. "Or is it just the girls who are spreading the word? I know Maria had called it by last night."

"I don't need to depend entirely on Isabel for this sort of info, man," Alex insisted. "I think it's good. Not to make too much of it, but you've been a little reluctant to get back into the game ever since Tess - took off."

"Yeah," Michael agreed. "And that whole Shelby deal with your Dad didn't help your confidence, I'm guessing."

Kyle shot Michael a look that was less friendly before he continued. "Anyway, there's good news and bad news. She gave me some decent flirt, but - but I'm starting to think that it might be harder than it seemed to slip into the middle of whatever's going on between her and the Doctor."

"What makes you say that?" Alex continued. "Just what happened?"

"It was no big thing, just - I dunno, every time he said something, or even did something much beyond the trivial motions of eating - then I didn't exist anymore in Rose's galaxy." Kyle sighed with resignation. "And she made a big fuss about not being able to stay to dance with him, after Liz called her phone."

"She's one for the dancing," Michael repeated pensively. "You may have to step up and win her heart that way, Valenti. Think that your rhythm is up to the challenge?"

"Hey, I know my way around a dance floor," Kyle insisted. "Maybe not whatever freaky alien moves they'd have in a place like this, but I can bluff my way through reasonably well."

"She may have experience with a lot of alien places and times, but she hasn't been anywhere like here or Antar before," Alex added supportively.

"I dunno, it wasn't just about dancing, it was like - when she said that, it was something private between the two of them. I was right there, but I didn't know what she meant by it, the way that he did. And that's why I don't think she'd let me dance with her just for asking, the way she'd go for him." Kyle let a long breath whistle through his lips. "But I'm not giving up, let that be perfectly clear. A girl like Rose - she's worth the time and effort it takes to get to know her, to understand what she's looking for in a man and win her heart the old fashioned way."

"Best fortune with that dream, brother," Alex said softly.

"Thanks. So, moving on from the prospects of my own love life, such as they are - how do you boys feel about the rooming arrangements with your sweeties?" Kyle let out a suggestive laugh, and Alex rolled his eyes, blushing faintly.

"Hey, I'm looking forward to it, are you kidding me?" Michael shot back. "It's not like this is entirely unfamiliar ground for Miss DeLuca and myself. Just a nice change to get a chance to bunk down without worrying about her matre - at least, not until we go back to Earth to pick _her_ up too."

"So she doesn't do _anything_ that irritates you when you're sharing space together?" Alex teased. "Hog the covers, kick you in her sleep? Nag you about unpacking your luggage neatly, and folding your dirty clothes?"

"All of the above, obviously," Michael admitted. "It's Maria we're talking about, right? But when it comes down to it... just a second, hold this steady, right?" He held out one of the non-wood spars out in front of him, (some kind of very hard plastic, it seemed to be, in a vividly bright blue.) Both Alex and Kyle took his words as aimed at them, and seized one end of the rod each. Michael blinked slightly, then considered how well they were holding the stick motionless between them, and decided not to disrupt a circumstance that was working well enough. "I'm more than willing to cut her some slack, in a circumstance like that, and Maria also... she's not really one to be difficult just for the fun of it or to insist on something that she can see is bugging me. Where we mostly get into trouble is the places where the lines of communication break down." As he finished his explanation, Michael started to use the power of his thoughts to 'drill' through the plastic, and run heavy cotton rope, (or something like cotton, it did seem to be a natural plant fiber at least,) through the drill holes.

"Okay, good answer," Kyle agreed. "What about yourself and the lovely Miss Evans, Whitman?"

Alex flushed fairly hard before he even opened his mouth up to reply. "Well, first off, I do take the 'no kissing and telling' stuff very seriously, so you guys shouldn't expect much in the way of details. I - I don't think that we've gotten quite as used to serious intimacy as - as you have, Michael, but there have been a few memorable moments. Hopefully tonight will be one to add to the book of memories inside my head."

"Alright. One more question, man, you don't have to answer but I feel like I need to ask - Isabel _totally_ takes charge when you're in the bedroom, doesn't she? I mean, it's pretty easy to guess that dynamic, just by watching the two of you in any other situation."

"Oh, you might be surpri-prised," Alex muttered, but the stammer might have ruined whatever effect he was going for.

It wasn't too long before Kyle had his hammock arranged to satisfaction, and a few more ribald tales had been told by that time - mostly Kyle bragging about Vicky Delaney and a couple other notable ex-girlfriends he had had before really joining the 'I know an alien' club.

Wandering back down the hallway, Michael and Alex found that the Doctor and Isabel were by this point hard at work on the bed in the Isabel/Alex room, while Maria and Rose had remained behind in Michael and Maria's quarters to keep talking among themselves. Michael lost no time in suggesting to his girlfriend that they should give the bed 'a really thorough test run' to make sure that the Doctor's labors had been successful.

That left Rose with only Alex to talk to as they waited for the final mattress conversion to finish. "So, is it different sleeping on another planet?" Alex asked the slightly older girl. "Can you tell?"

"Hmm." Rose considered that. "I can tell waking up on another world, I think. Something in the gravity and the air, or something inside my head if nothing else is really different. In terms of falling asleep - actually not so much, assuming that I actually _can_ get to sleep."

"Is that so hard, usually?" Alex asked, smiling just slightly.

"Well, it can be - depending on what's going on, how excited I am, what the noise and lighting levels can be," Rose admitted. "I usually manage to get enough sleep to tick over, even if it's not always at the usually expected times."

"Makes sense," Alex admitted. "Well, maybe you should go in and wish Kyle a good night. Just so that he isn't sitting up all night trying to figure out the trick of getting some rest."

Rose shot him a confused look for a second, then stood up and balanced on the tips of her toes for a second. "Sounds like a very nice idea, and thank you for it." And she headed off down the hallway to Kyle's door.

Alex smiled to himself and watched Isabel and the Doctor working. Hopefully it wouldn't take too much longer before he could use the bed. He did feel pretty tired.


	5. Chapter 5

"Ahh, yeah, this is much better," Michael admitted, wriggling his back into the mattress somewhat and squeezing with his left arm, that was going around Maria's shoulders in a somewhat odd way that the two of them had found by trial and error was actually mutually comfortable. "Gotta admit, the Doctor's a handy guy with that screwdriver."

"A **sonic** screwdriver," Maria repeated, as if wondering at the conjunction of concepts there, and she leaned her upper body across to kiss him soundly. "Well, I'm just glad that it's all over with, that the bed is decent, and that it's just the two of us until morning. Whenever morning comes by Kaalto time." One of her hands reached out under the covers and playfully wandered down Michael's chest, in a way that gave him no doubt that she was heading 'below the belt' as it were.

"Umm... as strange as it might be for me to say this - can we just hold each other and go to sleep, or try to?" Michael blurted out. Maria didn't say anything in response, but her hand stopped its movement and somehow he could tell that she was looking at him - or focusing her gaze on the dark spot where his voice had come from, at least. "I mean - it's not you, it's me. Of course I'm still hot for you, in principle, but... no, that sounds horrible, can I..."

Maria's hand made it up to his right shoulder, where it rested. Possibly that was about as far as she could get to 'holding hands' without figuring out where his left hand was, or contorting to bring one of her hands to her own right shoulder, which was where Michael's right hand was currently resting. "Of course that's okay, sweetie," she said, her voice a whisper that was somehow intensely thrilling to him despite the content. "But - well, I admit I'm curious about what's going through your head when you don't want to fool around, given a reasonably great opportunity. Is it something to do with the simple fact of being on an alien planet? Not trusting the bed to stand up to different positions and energetic activities? Something else?"

Michael had to laugh at the way she'd put it. "A bit of each, I guess. Not like I'm worried about the Kaaltans watching us, or finding out about what we've been up to - but it's something of a... not a culture shock, more like a concept shock I guess, coming here, relatively suddenly. Has me out of sorts. And the bed is a serious concern. We've got it tamed so that it won't cause any trouble for sleep, I think, but I feel like it would be a bit foolish to press the point."

"Alright," Maria admitted. "Anything else?"

"Hmm." Michael considered. "Nothing I can put my finger on, or even begin to explain."

"Alright then. Thanks for - well, for being honest with me." Maria moved herself a bit closer to Michael, her body pressing along the length of his side from underarm nearly to his toes, and let out an enormously satisfied sigh. "Goodnight, sweet dreams my spaceboy. See you in the morning."

Of course, it was hardly Michael's fault that this provocation seemed to set all of his hormones on fire. He hesitated only a second to see what response he could make without ending up in dangerous territory with the bed, as he understood its current condition, and elected to start with more or less a mirror of Maria's own gambit - bringing his free hand across and running it over the front of her shirt.

Maria's giggle seemed to echo in his ear. "I knew it. Sucker."

"Oh, just you wait until I get started," Michael breathed back, licking his lips in readiness. "Now, if things get at all out of hand, we may need to spread the thickest blankets out on the floor, and move down there. You ready for it?"

"Just watch me."

"Not yet, kitten." With as smooth a pressure as he could manage, Michael encouraged Maria up from lying on her side to a reclining position more or less on top of him, and then started to tug her shirt loose and up her arms, over her head. "Let's just see where things go from here."

"I'll keep my panties on as long as you want, lover, but it doesn't take a weather girl to know which way the wind blows. This is just going to get both of us racing to go for more."

And Michael had to admit that was probably true. He saved himself from admitting it out loud by putting his lips to work on something else that he knew Maria would appreciate.

#

Isabel felt consciousness settle on her like a restless weight, and as she turned her head to examine the room, somehow in the darkness she was sure that it was still the middle of the night, even before she caught sight of the illuminated chronometer and forced her brain through the mental math to interpret what the designation of 4122 meant. They had worked out, with the Doctor's help, just before turning in, that Kaalto used a clock of 50 'hours', each divided into one hundred 'minutes', and that 0000 time was conventionally more or less the time that most people woke up from sleep and began their day, as opposed to midnight on Earth, which was closer to the time that an average citizen would _go_ to bed.

Without even knowing what she was up to, Isabel gently extricated herself from Alex's tender nocturnal embrace, climbed off of the mattress, and dressed once again in the clothes that she had worn on their arrival yesterday. (Part of her would rather have chosen new wardrobe, even for a middle of the night sortie, but on the other hand she rebelled against the prospect of putting clean clothes on her body without cleansing the skin through bathing first. That could wait until morning.) And apparently it was a midnight sortie into the township colony that she was preparing for, even though she was nervous about the prospect and would rather have had company for her first explorations, but then - Alex was sleeping so peacefully that she didn't have the heart to wake him, and she wasn't sure about bothering any of the others. Michael/Maria's room, and Kyle's, and their own, all had a kind of fingerprint lock that only the assigned occupants could open automatically, though they'd been keeping their doors open during the 'evening.' There was a 'doorbell' control that could be used to signal for the attention of those who were inside, but she wasn't certain if it would be loud and noticeable enough to wake up sleeping earthlings. And the TARDIS, apparently, had a Time Lord lock that only the Doctor could open now, and no bell or knocker that Isabel knew of that would signal those inside.

Dressed now, she slipped out of the room, neurotically checked to make sure that her fingerprint would still let her back in, and considered the hallway. It made her feel a bit less alienated to identify Michael and Maria's door, and Kyle's, and the slight protrusion of the TARDIS side, (including the door) from a nearby wall. Now, where to next? She remembered some directions that Alex had mentioned before they'd turned in, during the ordering of dinner sequence actually. If they'd had to return anything to the kitchen because it was unpalatable, (for them to dispose of instead of reserving, presumably, but they didn't really have suitable disposals in their rooms,) or needed more food, Maria had insisted that the four of them should venture out to the dining hall themselves, instead of presuming on official couriers, and Isabel had endorsed that plan, so Alex had looked up the directions for the catering location.

Now, that was a direction that Isabel could head towards, at least, and - well, maybe she could find a suitable midnight snack that would help lull her back to sleep. Anything in the vein of a milkshake or chocolate beverage would probably do. The first step in Alex's directions, though, were to head up the hallway in the 'unknown' direction, not going back the way that they had come when the guide had shown the five of them to their rooms.

Well, there was no help for that. Setting her head at what seemed like a determined angle, Isabel strode off down the corridor, made a right turn at the first intersection as Alex had indicated - and nearly collided into a Kaaltan girl around her own age. "Oh, sorry, excuse me, I wasn't looking where I was going..."

"That - that's okay," the other girl said. "Are - I'm very sorry, this is probably rude, but are you one of the visitors who just 'sort of dropped in' today?"

Isabel laughed. "No, I don't think that's a rude question, and yes, I am. I - I don't suppose you get many visitors here?"

"Not a huge number, but enough," the girl answered, sounding a bit defensive. "_Most_ of them land outside and come in through the airlock, though."

"Well... I'd like to say that I like to do things differently, but that's actually the genius of the guy who we were hitching a ride with."

"Is he really a Time Lord? What does that even mean?"

"I hardly know myself," Isabel hedged. "Just met him a few days ago. Listen - I was having trouble sleeping, and thought that I'd go down to the dining hall for a midnight snack. I don't know if you have somewhere else to go yourself, but..." As she said it, Isabel suddenly thought that maybe she would rather go with this alien girl somewhere unexpected, than continue on to the dining hall on her own. Should she not have even mentioned...

"Oh, that sounds alright," the girl said. "I, um, well... I have to go on duty in around an hour, and could do with some sustenance before I start work. Umm - do you know what sort of stuff we'd serve that you'd - you know, like?"

Isabel laughed. "Well, my friends and I got through dinner okay, and I'm just looking for a midnight snack to put myself back to sleep - or I guess I was." The two of them started moving again - Isabel didn't worry about finding the way herself, but just followed the native. "I'm Isabel, by the way. What's your name, and what sort of duty do you have that you have to show up around 4200?"

Her new friend laughed in a sort of twinkly way. "Hi, Isabel, my name is Brandah. And - well, according to my employment contract, I'm a troubleshooting software engineer for the public transit system." Isabel made an impressed noise. "In reality, that means that I stare at a bunch of display screens for hours at a time, waiting for them to flash critical error message boxes which tell me I have to make routine adjustments to the routing or other criteria for the program." She sighed. "You might wonder why this sort of thing can't be fully automated, but..."

"Actually, somehow I can guess," Isabel said. "The system was built with prefabricated components that weren't intended for an underground installation like Kaalto, the pre-boxed software was tweaked from the start, and there's no sufficiently highly trained programmer workforce here to rewrite it from scratch, even if the township government had the funds to pay for a project like that. So instead they just keep paying someone to keep an eye on it and make routine adjustments."

Brandah whistled. "Not a bad guess, though I'm not sure of all the details. Do - I mean, how did you..."

"My boyfriend's a computer programmer, though he doesn't work with the same sort of systems as you have," Isabel said. "I've heard from him about the kinds of snarls that projects like this get into. And we saw on the history program last night how Kaalto's founding was more than a bit - makeshift. From there I just let my imagination wander and come up with the worst stuff it could."

"Ahh, okay." The two girls reached the bottom of a stairway, (which Isabel did remember from her directions,) and Brandah led the way around a left turn. "So, where **are** you from, anyway?"

Isabel tried not to visibly tense. The Doctor had been quite clear that he didn't want any of his large crowd of 'companions' to be forthcoming with the Kaaltans about an origin on Earth, and his reasons had been persuasive. From all that they could work out, Earth would be primarily known here in connection with the story of the Royal Four, as the planet to which their DNA had been taken, and from which the reborn four would re-emerge. (It was hard to tell if they'd know that Tess had already left Earth.) If any of them identified Earth, there would be questions about Antarian hybrids, and it might occur to someone to wonder if some of their visitors were part of the Royal Four, as indeed Isabel and Michael were. Then there could be all kinds of expectations of them, and the township governor might not even let them leave.

"Umm, nowhere special," she muttered, wondering if this evasion would work. "We don't really have a proper name for our planet, even, because we haven't made contact with other inhabited worlds or species on our own. If it weren't for the Doctor..." She trailed out on that suggestive line before she had to make it a half-truth or worse.

"Hmm... okay. There are enough places like that around, I've heard that much. Usually they come up with some sort of term for the planet - sometimes it's a variant on the local word for 'dirt' or 'ground' or whatever." Brandah tilted her head in a gesture that Isabel couldn't immediately interpret. "Do you know if it's near Kaalto or not?"

"Not exactly," Isabel said. That was true, inasmuch as she wasn't sure _how_ near it was. The hint had been dropped that they were close to the same neighborhood, in galactic terms. "Really, home isn't interesting at all, compared to a place like this."

"The air always smells sweeter one sector away," Brandah said philosophically. "Growing up here on Kaalto, I'm definitely of the opinion that nothing could be duller. In fact, I'm building up a 'get me out of here' credit fund."

"Really?" Isabel said, as they finally entered what looked like the dining hall. "Where would you go, when you've saved up enough? Do a lot of ships land here that you might purchase passage on?"

"Not a huge number - maybe a small economy liner from Sector Warp Incorporated, every other tarran," she said offhandedly, leading the way to a short line for a touch-sensitive patch of wall. "And one or two some sort of independent enterpreneur within the same time period. We're not _that_ cut off from civilization."

"Sorry - how many days in a tarran?"

"Oh - forty to forty-two, depending on the intricacies of the calendar."

"Alright." Isabel nodded and tried to figure out where she wanted to steer the conversation next. "How much of what you'd need have you got saved up? And you didn't say where you'd want to go."

"No, I didn't, did I?" It had only been a few seconds since they'd lined up, but Brandah was nearly at the head of the line already. "Well, first off, I've nearly saved up the sum I'd need for passage with an independent, but I'd like to have more before I cut my ties. It can take some time to get settled on a brand-new planet and find good work, and there'd be a lot of expenses involved in that." Isabel nodded, though Brandah wasn't really looking at her but at the Kaaltan working the kiosk interface just ahead of her.

"In terms of where I'd want to go - well, the first stop is closer in towards the heart of the Antarian sector. Oooh, excuse me." It was Brandah's turn, and she didn't take long to place her order, wave a wristband at the wall, and collect a little slip of paper. And then, the belated realization hit Isabel.

All seven of them had been issued bracelets like that, after the Doctor had finished his negotiations with the Governor, and a flunky had explained that they were necessary as a source of credit for any economic transaction anywhere in the township. They had all been provided with a generous spending account as a 'token of esteem' for the Time Lord visitor - and Isabel hadn't actually brought her bracelet with her!

She'd put it on immediately, of course, and hadn't expected to remove the thing, since it seemed to important. However, trying to sleep with the unfamiliar texture in contact with the skin of her wrist had been oddly distracting, and she'd removed it and placed it - she'd placed it in one of her shoes, with the mental reminder to put it on again in the morning. This wasn't morning yet, really - but still, how could Isabel have put her _damn shoes_ on without being reminded of the credit bracelet? Quickly she squirmed her feet around, wondering if the bracelet was still jammed into her footwear, but there was no sign of that.

So she opted for the easiest way out she could. "Brandah - I didn't... this is so embarassing, but I left my wristband in my quarters. I'll just go back and..."

"No, come on, I won't hear of it," Brandah said, returning surprisingly quickly from the nearest empty table for two that she had been waiting at. "If all you're after is a snack, it won't come to much. I'll put it on my own tab." And she held up her own wrist.

So, feeling very foolish, Isabel scrolled through another menu, asked a few questions of her new friend when she got to the beverage area, and finally ordered a medium-sized serving of 'Karvalla', which was supposed to be a tasty and thick 'dessert beverage.' Brandah swiped her wrist again, Isabel took her receipt, (which turned out to be metal instead of paper, as she had thought when Brandah collected hers,) and went back to Brandah's table, which a boy-girl couple around their own age were just settling into.

"Hey!" Brandah said, the very picture of assertive confidence. "I was here first. My breakfast is probably already on the way." She pointed to a little slot in the tabletop near one of the chairs, and then to a delivery robot that had just started to make its way down from the far side of the hall.

"Yeah?" the new guy said, sneering slightly in a way that made his violet skin iridesce slightly. "Well, why weren't you here then?"

"My friend needed a bit of help," Brandah said. "She's new here and she's a VIP, and I don't think it would be a great idea for you to cause trouble."

The girl gave Isabel a classic up-and-down once over look, (or was that twice?) and let out a soft breath. "She doesn't **look** very important, Brandah. Why should we take your word for it?"

Isabel wanted to jump in and take Brandah's side, but she wasn't sure what response would be appropriate, so she just tried to smile an assertive and confident smile of her own. Brandah didn't look like she needed much help, though. "Sorry, I didn't make the introductions. Neelee, this is Isabel, of planet Grarhk from the far side of the Coalblack drift, and a Time Lord's companion. You did hear that a Time Lord had dropped in on the Governor today, didn't you? I'd do the honors for your friend, but I'm afraid I haven't had the formalities yet myself."

Neelee made a face. "Brandah, Isabel, this is my good friend Toreg, from the South Plains Tenting, just transferred to the College." There was a pause. "And we're sorry about the misunderstanding, I suppose. Your table first."

"Thank you so much, nice to meet you, Toreg," Brandah said, dazzlingly graceful in victory.

"A pleasure to be introduced to you both," Isabel chimed in as Neelee got up. She waited two seconds after the other girl moved away before seating herself and slipping her receipt into the slot near this seat, which presumably was used to let delivery robots know where to take her Karvalla.

Brandah giggled like a picollo after Toreg and Neelee had left, but didn't volunteer any further insights into the confrontation. "So, do you have a history with Neelee?" Isabel asked. Apparently that idiom didn't translate entirely clearly. "I mean, do you often have - personality conflicts with her?"

"Oh, umm - not really that often now, mostly because we don't meet all that often," Brandah answered. "We had some memorable starworks when we were both in secondary classes together - started off friends when we were younger, but a few differences of opinion drew us apart and set the stage for a rivalry." Brandah's face fell as the delivery robot pulled up to the next table before theirs. "But in one way I guess she's got the last laugh - she was able to get into tertiary schooling, and here I am, working a job that's literally a dead end."

"No, what would be a dead end was if somebody _wasn't_ doing your job," Isabel pointed out, and got the laugh that she'd been hoping for. "So, tertiary schooling - that's the college that she mentioned, yes?" Brandah nodded. "Why couldn't you go if you wanted to? Was it a question of credit, or your secondary school performance being not good enough, or tests to determine who has the most potential to learn, or something else?"

"Yes, there are always standards tests, and performance evaluations," Brandah agreed. "The credit isn't a huge deal - I mean, if I'd been accepted, it might have been hard to scrape up the tuition, but I'd have found a way somehow."

"Would your parents have been able to help?" Isabel asked.

"Mom would do what she could," Brandah agreed. "In fact, I think that there was a portion of Father's inheritance that she'd been earmarking for my school expenses, until I told her that there was no need and she should just spend it."

'Didn't you ask for any of it for your travel fund?' Isabel wondered to herself, but didn't say that out loud. Maybe Brandah's mother wasn't happy about the prospect of her daughter leaving the colony, after losing her... her husband, or mate, or whatever, and Brandah didn't want to aggravate the issue by 'asking for help.' Isabel could respect that. "Do you have any brothers or sisters?"

"Hmm?" Of course, at just that moment the robot started to offer Brandah her breakfast selections, all brightly colored and not really resembling anything particular that Isabel could think of just at the moment. "One little brother, just starting secondary school a few tarrans back, so that's another reason why Mom needed the money. It isn't easy raising kids on a single worker's pay."

"Yeah, I guess not," Isabel admitted. "So, going back a bit, you said that the core of the Antarian sector would be 'the first stop'. If and when you left."

"Oh, right." Brandah devoured some kind of puffy pink items, and kept talking whenever her mouth wasn't obviously full. "That's where all the ships go, it's kind of a hub and spoke system. I - well, I wouldn't want to spend much time on Antar now, or Breoll, they're each a mess and a half. Rahlicx, or the other old colonies, Gevina and whats-its-name, they sound decent enough. People say that there's still danger of a bombing from space or an unexpected terrorist attack, but I've checked the statistics and the danger really isn't that great. They're big planets and every time there's an incident that kills a few dozen people, it's big news."

"Right," Isabel said, fighting an instinct to suck in a deep breath. "We heard some about the fighting between the five planets, and the background on Antar. Didn't somebody take over the planet, years and years back? The Doctor mentioned something about that."

"Yeah, Kivar Andraikus." Brandah dismissed him with a breath let out of the corners of her mouth. "He's bad news, but unfortunately nobody seems ready or willing to take care of him and send him packing yet."

Isabel hesitated, and then took a chance. "And - and what about the people who were in charge before him. Do you know anything about them, from school and such, I mean?"

#

Kyle groaned as he woke up and only just managed to avoid flipping the hammock and dumping himself down onto the floor. Getting down off the thing in a controlled manner was a somewhat tricky affair, but his athletic agility stood him in good stead, and soon he was off to the bathing room chamber somebody had pointed out to him.

It was a bit hard to make out the workings of the various appliances though, except for the toilet receptacle, which seemed to have obvious similarities in shape to similar objects on Earth, (not a perfect match, but close enough to be recognizable,) and few enough controls that Kyle thought he could figure them out.

Near the far end of the chamber, though, there was a prominent metal pipe, that reached up maybe four feet and ten or eleven inches off the floor, with a lever that could be pointed left or right mounted near it, and a sort of a wheel control built into the floor. Cautiously, Kyle tried moving the lever back and forth, but saw no effect to it. He tried with his sock foot, (not having put on shoes,) to pull the wheel towards him - but it wouldn't come. Ever so gently, he tried a pushing gesture. The wheel moved maybe an inch and a half - and a very gentle trickle of water emerged from the top of the pipe, falling back down it, onto the floor, and was consumed by one of several drains that were installed in the floor around this area.

Hmm. Kyle brought his hand close to the trickle - the water was intensely cold, and there was much too little of it to try to scrub his fingers with. Well, the volume flow issue he might be able to deal with, but first, a few precautions. Kyle retreated across the room, checked that the door appeared to be locked, and stripped off all of his clothing, from shirt to socks and everything in between, including undershorts. Returning to the pipe, he prodded the wheel a bit further away with his toes, and the trickle grew into a small fountaining of cold water. This was definitely enough to wash hands with - but still bitterly cold. A bit of experimentation with the back and forth lever showed that it controlled temperature. Kyle had left it pointing very far to the right, which apparently meant 'cold.'

Was there no way to catch this fountaining water and hold some of it in a vessel like a sink? Further inspired, Kyle noticed a few odd shapes sticking out of the wall in the area of the pipe and found that they could be pulled together, metal plates fitting seamlessly together to form a kind of watertight basket. They let him construct a small sink that would hold hot or cold water from the pipe, and he could pull the 'basket' back apart to drain it. Still seemed to be a bit less dignified than an Earth washroom. He also located a dispenser of powder that foamed up soapily when it got wet, and a drawer with a collection of sponges from fist-sized to double the diameter of basketballs.

With this much accomplished, Kyle managed to clean himself up quite well and had fun doing it. The process of showering seemed a bit strange, since he had to ramp the pipe fountain up to its highest level, so that the curtain of hot water arced more than seven feet high, and then stand in the path of its return trip further down, with wasted water coming down onto the floor all around him and getting drained up. As he finished drying himself off with the biggest sponge, and dressing, someone was pounding on the door.

"Sorry," he said, opening it from inside, and then blinked. There was Rose, wearing nothing much other than boxer shorts and a faded tank top. "Hey - don't you have plumbing inside the TARDIS?" he blurted out, unable to stop himself.

"Umm, yes, but the Doctor's using it," she said with a shy smile. "Don't - umm, don't worry, I'm not going to tie things up here for long, I know that all your friends are going to have to clean up, not to mention - any other guest of this particular corridor who have nothing particular to do with us. Just - need to take care of a call of nature, okay?"

"Well - sure, who am I to stand in the way of a damsel in distress?" Kyle said, hurriedly stepping out. Rose gave him just one grateful smile before she slipped inside the room and closed the door again.

Kyle took a moment to recover his balance, headed back up in the direction of the Roswellian's rooms, and then noticed Michael poke his head out of his doorway. "Oh, bloody hell Valenti, who'd you let into the can?" he asked. "We're all waiting for a shower here."

"Antarian showers are something else," he warned, "and if you were so impatient, why weren't you standing in line at the door yourself?" Michael just glared. "Don't worry, Rose won't be long - I think that she just had a number one to take care of that wouldn't be denied."

"Rose, huh?" The look on Michael's face became knowing for a moment that irritated Kyle - after all, he would have let anybody into the bathroom after him in such a situation, it didn't have anything to do with his having the hots for Rose, really!

"Yeah. So, how'd you and Maria sleep?"

"_No_ complaints," Michael declared. As Kyle came up to the doorway, Michael pulled the door open even wider and sort of leaned against it coolly.

"You'd **better** not be complaining, after..." Maria's voice came from deeper inside the room, and then trailed off. "Kyle, is that you?"

"Nobody else, Miss Maria."

"How was your night?" Unlike her topic of dialog, Maria didn't seem to be at all self-conscious about her nightwear wardrobe as she stepped into his field of vision from behind Michael. Her curly brown hair hadn't been tied up for the day yet, and the long yellow nightshirt adorning her body showed off smooth skin in the arm, leg, and collar areas. Kyle's gaze immediately focused on his feet, and in the progress, managed to see enough to notify him that Maria's feet were bare.

"My night, umm... alright, though the hammock was a bit more unwieldy than expected." Suddenly feeling foolish about his schoolboy pose, Kyle made a determined try for eye contact with Maria, and achieved it - aware of nothing more than her face, really, as he stared at it. She giggled faintly, as if knowing what had bothered him, and not caring personally about it in the slightest.

"So, what's the plan for today?" Michael said, his voice betraying a bit of impatience. (That did make sense. Michael had a bit of the posessive and jealous streak in him, and even if Maria didn't mind about showing off for her nearly-stepbrother and enjoyed watching him squirm, Kyle wasn't surprised that Michael might take a dimmer view.)

"Don't know really," Maria breezed back. "Some kind of breakfast sounds good, after getting washed up. I know that the Doctor wants to get started on his research. Wonder if he'll want any help from us with it?"

"He should," Michael grumbled. "We've got more experience in Antarian affairs than he does, even if we haven't ever been to an Antarian planet before this, and - well, you know."

"I guess," Kyle agreed. "When you see him, volunteer to go, don't just ask. Something just this side of _telling_ him that you're going."

"Sounds good," Michael agreed. "Isabel can do that too, and you too Maria if you want, you've been around for enough interesting stuff."

"Yeah," Kyle chimed in. "I don't think I have as much 'experience' with this stuff as you guys do, and maybe Alex doesn't either..."

"...Except it's a sore point with Alex that he always gets left out of alien business, so he'll want to come along anyway, and maybe learn," Maria filled in. "Trust me."

"That does sound like him," Michael agreed. "Oh, there's Rose. So who goes in next?"

"What sounds like who?" Kyle looked up and saw Alex coming from the room that he was sharing with Isabel.

"Einie, meanie, miney, moe," Kyle immediately started chanting, counting off the rhythm between Alex, Michael, and Maria. Of course, as it always does with three people, the final 'moe' came back to the first person, and Michael was looking daggers at both Kyle and Alex before the rhyme was done.

"What do I get?" Alex asked.

"To go into the bathroom next, if you're ready," Maria filled in. "After which we can explain what sounded like you."

"Umm... okay I guess," Alex said, patting down his pajamas. "Do I need a towel or something..."

"No, just check in the cupboard for sponges," Kyle advised. "Not the ones that I left out, they'll be dirty, I couldn't figure out where to put them for cleaning."

"People here have alien powers," Michael pointed out. "They probably clean out the sponges themselves after they're done."

"Well, we can't do that," Alex pointed out. "Any other gotchas about the bathroom, Kyle?"

"Umm, let's see, where do I start?" Kyle said, falling into step next to Alex, escorting him to the facilities room. "The pipe at the back is a sort of combination sink and shower, and it spouts up like a fountain. You control the temperature with a back and forth lever, and the spout height with the wheel on the floor."

"Hmm, useful tips," Michael reflected. "Guess there's an upside to not being the first one into the alien bathroom."

"Yeah, I guess," Maria said, walking over towards the door, which Alex had closed. "I guess the TARDIS translation field doesn't work on picture icons - do you think this is supposed to mean that it's a washroom?" She reached out a finger to point to a sort of plaque on the door, with a line drawing on it in bright blue."

"Hmm, yeah, I guess," Kyle said, seeing a hint of the fountain inside the image. "Are you thinking of looking for another one nearby?"

"Well, why not, if carefully?" Maria said. "I think I remember seeing another sign like this when we were being brought to our rooms. And there really should be more bathroom facilities for all of these accomodations." And she headed off down the way that they had originally come to this corridor. Michael shrugged and followed along, and Kyle tagged along curiously.

#

"I think I'll invite everybody over for breakfast in the TARDIS," the Doctor announced, once all four of them had finally finished going through the washroom line. "Umm, aren't we missing somebody?"

"I think that Isabel had some trouble sleeping," Alex put in. "She'll probably wake up good and ready in an hour or so. I didn't think that there was any need to disturb her now that she's getting some decent zzz's. She'll be much more fun to be around today this way."

"Alright, I suppose," the Doctor replied. "Want to leave her a note saying where we'll all be, just in case?"

"Sure - of course, that would require having paper and pencil," Alex admitted, smiling feebly. Maria handed over a scrap of envelope from a tiny purse that was hanging at her hip now, and the Doctor provided an elegant fountain pen. "Umm - if she knocks on the TARDIS door, will we be able to hear it?"

"I will," the Doctor said enigmatically, so Alex shrugged and started to write his note, being careful with the pen because it seemed on a hair trigger compared to the ballpoints he more usually worked with.

Once the note was put on the pillow next to Isabel, they all filed into the TARDIS, past the console room into a slightly crowded dining room. "Sorry, but I don't usually play host to so many people," the Doctor said as the kids took their seats at a table already set and filled with the makings for an English breakfast. "Had to stick extender leaves into the table, even."

Maria instinctively reached out to run her hand along the underside of the table, once she had taken her place near the middle of the long back side of it. As far as she could tell, the Doctor must have been making a joke, because the surface of it was unbroken, and seemed to have a texture like plastic. But once Michael handed her the basket of cinnamon toast, she didn't worry about extender leaves any more.

"Alright, what can we do to help you with your research?" Michael asked forthrightly after finishing and swallowing his first few bites.

"Umm... I don't know offhand," the Doctor admitted. "Come with me to the university library this morning, and we'll sort out what needs to be done once we're there. Is there anybody who isn't up for coming along?"

There was a long silence in response to that - until Maria and Rose caught each other's eyes, and something passed between them. "Actually, I thought I'd go explore and shop, if there was somebody else who wanted to come too." She waited for a few seconds. "Maria?"

Hating herself just a little, (though it was for a good cause in her mind,) Maria shook her head. "Thanks for the invite, but I think I'll take a raincheck and go with Michael today. Anybody _else_ want to escort Rose safely through the markets of Kaalto?"

"Oh, hey, sounds better than the library," Kyle blurted out, finally recognizing his cue. "That is, if you wouldn't mind my company, Miss Tyler?"

Rose shot Maria a somewhat uncertain look when she realized the point of the whole exercise, but then shrugged slightly and favored Kyle with a bright smile. "I only hope that the two of us don't get into too much trouble together." The Doctor suddenly looked up from his rashers and browns and cocked his head. "Umm - seriously, doctor, I'll keep us both out of trouble. I really can if I try, you know."

"No, that's not it," he assured her absently and got up, heading out of the dining room, leaving a mystified silence behind him. Nobody started up conversation, or even started chewing, so the entire company could hear the Doctor's footsteps as he moved through the TARDIS - and suddenly a faint pounding rang out - a delicate and feminine fist trying to make itself heard against a metal surface. "Morning, Isabel," the Doctor replied mildly.

"Oh, hello. You heard me?" Isabel asked.

"I could hear a spider climbing up the TARDIS, if I were inside it," he told her matter-of-factly. "Didn't Alex say that I'd be able to hear you in the message?"

"Yes, but I didn't realize that... that the threshold was spider footsteps." Now her voice was coming closer to the dining room. "So, what's for breakfast?"

"Lots of good stuff," Alex chimed in. "Not to mention plans, which are admittedly not quite so tasty."

"Oh, I see." And then Isabel did get a chance to see the fully laden table, as she and the Doctor appeared in the wide doorway together. "What sort of plans?"

"Kyle and Rose are taking off for sight seeing and shopping," Michael filled in succintly as Isabel made her way to the empty seat between Alex and Maria. "The rest of us are planning to go help the Doctor on his research. Who are you with?"

"With Alex, of course," Isabel told him with a smile. "Though I hope I'll have other opportunities with the shopping."

"We'll make some kind of time," Maria assured her. "Here, try these crumpets with a bit of butter and grape jelly. They're amazing."

"How do you manage catering like this?" Kyle asked the Doctor. "Is it something like a mini-vortex that you can send back from the TARDIS to Earth, to gather up groceries?"

"No, I could possibly manage something like that if the need was dire, but the explanation for this food is much closer to the mundane," The Doctor admitted. "When we're back on Earth, I go shopping and stock up. Fond of the English fare, so it makes sense to carry plenty of it."

"And how long does it keep?" Maria asked, gesturing to the bacon and the little silver dish of cream.

"Just about forever," Rose filled in. "The larder's adjusted so that when the door closes, time doesn't pass inside."

"In addition to more a usual cooling effect," the Doctor added. "Just for those who can't be cured of standing there with the door open, trying to decide what they want."

"Okay," Maria said. "And how do we get to this college library? Will someone be coming along to show us the way?"

"Yes," the Doctor said, checking his watch. "But not for about half an hour, Earth time, so there's yet plenty of time to eat up."


	6. Chapter 6

"Umm, hello in there?" The Doctor knocked on a solid brown plastic door and it swung slightly further ajar. He peered within, then back at the retinue of Roswellian teenagers who had come along with him. Michael nodded encouragingly and gestured for him to go further in. His eyes somewhat ill at ease, the Doctor pushed the door wide.

"Yehsss?" The scratchy baritone voice surprised all five of them, but the Doctor recovered composure first, nodding respectfully at the Kaaltan native wearing a kind of a long deep green dressing gown, standing just at the edge of his field of vision past the open door. "What is your business at the college of Kaalto?"

"I am an emissary of the Time Lords," the Doctor started confidently. "Come on a quest for knowledge, and your governor has given me permission to - to ask peaceful entry into the college library and archives. These young people with me serve as my staff and students."

"Well, come across the threshold, I suppose," he said with a weary sort of giggle that definitely wasn't about anything funny. Perhaps, with alien reactions, that was his version of a sigh. They filed silently inside and stood in a loose line, the Doctor in the center, on one side of the College's atrium. On the other side of the room, a few staff were quietly working on miniature computer terminals. "Your staff are not also of Galifreyan extraction, are they?"

The Doctor nodded first, not as an answer to the question, but a sign of respect to the man of learning for correctly identifying the name of the Time Lord's home planet. "No, they are not - I choose my companions from the worlds that I visit - those who are open to adventure and new experiences."

"Very well, Doctor. The College did receive word of your arrival from the Governor's office last night, and I have been granted the authority to listen to your petition, and rule in judgement of it, based on criteria suggested by the Board of Trustees. I am Precept Kivar Zeldiss, and..."

"Kivar?" The name escaped Isabel in a high-pitched squeak. Precept Zeldiss angled his head curiously in her direction.

"Excuse - excuse my friend," Alex volunteered nervously. "We have heard of - of Kivar Andraikus, the - the current ruler of Antar. He is part of what we have come to research."

"Oh, I see." Zeldiss seemed to be somewhat mollified. "Yes, I have encountered that reaction before, though it is an old and respectable name, if never particularly common. Somewhat frustrating to have it associated with so - so infamous a person."

"What does the name mean?" the Doctor asked curiously.

"Hmm - I suppose the transliteration would be 'Seeker after knowledge.' Appropriate for one in my position, and also not entirely innacurate for Andraikus, at least before he took power - he was a well known expert in mentalic power techniques, and some say his great political career started because the old Liaret king ruled that his researches were forbidden lore." Zeldiss met the Doctor's eyes intently. "If the subject of your research is Antarian, why do you come here, and not there, to learn?"

"Because part of our wish is to learn safely," the Doctor told him candidly. "From what I already know, asking too many questions about Kivar's rise, and those who ruled before him, might arouse unfriendly attention in Antar's capital city."

"And our modest home planet seemed quiet enough to be entirely secure, but close enough to the Antarian sphere of interest that you thought you could learn what you needed, is that it?" Zeldiss asked, and the Doctor nodded after a second. "Hmm?"

"Oh, sorry - yes, that's more or less it."

"And are those things all that you seek to know?" Zeldiss pressed him.

Michael tried to catch the Doctor's eyes, but he wasn't breaking the Precept's eye contact yet. There were other questions that they did want to have answered here - especially where Tess had gone and taken the Granilith, but asking about them straight out might be unwise, even here. "We may have other questions once we begin to research, but those are the ones we have to start with," the Doctor hedged.

"I suppose I understand that. Are you willing to subject yourself to the College's law and authority, if we grant you and yours permission to remain and conduct your searches?"

"We will follow the rules that you lay out," the Doctor said carefully. "That is only common courtesy, as your guests. But I will not have my friends, or myself, put on trial for some law that you do not inform us of until afterwards. That's not cricket."

"No, I suppose it is not," Zeldiss agreed. Maria grunted in surprise, probably stunned that the idiom 'not cricket' had translated so smoothly, given that they couldn't have the game here. Maybe the TARDIS converted it to something more literal. "Then I suspect that the first book that you should open and read - is the college's disciplinary code."

Michael stifled a groan, wondering how big the College's list of rules and regulations would be.

#

"Hullo there." The young Kaaltan, introduced to them as an undergraduate junior, seemed to speak with a definitely English accent, though that might just be some strange inhuman whim of the TARDIS' translation circuit. (They hadn't asked if it was capable of whimsy.) "You're new, right? I mean, not just to the college."

Maria paused for a moment before answering, and Michael bristled slightly at the fact that the question and remark had been spoken in her direction, but he didn't interrupt, so she answered. "Yes. Just passing through to hit the books a little, or whatever the local equivalent is. I'm Maria DeLuca, and thanks for showing us to our assigned room, even if Precept Zeldiss ordered you to do it."

"Oh, I don't mind," their latest guide said with a pleasant smile. "There isn't much chance to meet new people at a place like Kaalto - I mean, really new. Obviously, with more than twenty thousands of us here, there are always people who you've never really met, but they always seem to be the same kind of ordinary locals."

"Well, I'm not sure that we're that interesting just because we come from another planet," Maria disclaimed, hoping to use this line to fend off any questions about their homeworld.

"I guess. My name is Xamev, by the way, sorry I didn't volunteer that earlier. Shocking lapse in manners. So, just what is it that you want to find out?"

"Umm - details about the founding of your colony," Maria lied, "and Kivar taking over Antar, and other recent political events. We're working on a definitive history of the galaxy, and nobody has that much reliable information about Antar sector."

"Huh - I guess I never thought of people from so far away as being interested in us," Xamev pointed out. "Or the founding of our township as 'recent', but oh well. Here's your room." He gestured to the door, and Michael recognized the thumbprint sensor and thumbed open the door. Presumably, just because Xamev knew where their room was, didn't mean that he had entry privileges to it. The doors slid open just like on 'Star Trek', revealing a long table with alien computer access stations at every spot around it. There was a sort of a shelf against one wall, not covering the whole length of the room, but Maria couldn't make out just what was being stored there - long and thin, with some kind of writing up and down the 'spine' - maybe old fashioned books, or audio/video media or removable computer storage.

"One - one thing, and I hope that I'm not violating your species customs by asking," Xamev said to Maria as the Doctor and Alex filed inside. Suddenly nervous, Michael stayed right by Maria's side, and Isabel loitered on the other side of the threshold cautiously. "Your skin, Maria, it's so smooth and such a beautiful and exotic colour. Would you mind terribly if I - if I touched you? I don't mean to be too familiar, but I just - I wanted to ask for this one thing." His hand had already lifted up somewhat, and seemed to be straining to reach out for her cheek, though still held back.

Maria shot a look at Michael, who seemed to be containing his fury. In a way, she was sorry for his restraint, because if he'd let some of that displeasure out, it would have let her off the hook of deciding how to handle this for herself. "Umm - I'm flattered in a way that you asked, but - sorry, that just sounds a bit too weird for someone that I hardly know." Xamev's face fell. "That is, not on the face, I think that's what you meant, yes? But there's a custom with our species of touching hands with those we meet." She reached out her hand out for him to shake. "But - keep a wall up so that you don't connect psychically with me by accident, right?"

"Oh, of course." He seemed somewhat mollified as he pressed his palm against hers, even though he obviously didn't have any clue as to the precise mechanism of shaking hands. (She _had_ said 'touching hands' to him.) "I hope that you find all that you seek. Best of days." And with a respectful jerk of his head sideways, he left them. Michael took Maria's hand in hers so hard that he nearly pulled her inside the room.

"So who looks up the disciplinary code?" Isabel asked.

"I'm already on it," the Doctor said, from the 'head' of the table. "You just explore in the computer system anywhere you like - no point in establishing an efficient search pattern for the information we need until you're familiar with the tools you'll be using."

It didn't actually take him too long to get through the rules - the Doctor scanned through 'the book' as a file on the College's networked computer system, and briefed them on the few hundred entries that seemed most likely to be relevant to them as visiting researchers. Meanwhile, the four young people started to search for basic information on recent Antarian history and royal politics.

"Oh, by the way, I got some 'girl on the street' input on this last night, by the way," Isabel said, as she tried to get the hang of paging over to a new index. "Well, girl in the corridor, I suppose, since we didn't meet on one of the few streets that they have in here."

"What, did you go off exploring by yourself?" Michael asked, sounding surprised. "Just when was this? I thought that we were all together..."

"Late in the middle of the night, when the rest of us were sleeping, honey?" Alex guessed, smiling tenderly at his girlfriend.

"Yeah, I woke up after just a few hours, and wanted to wander around and get something sweet and chocolate-like to help me get back in the mood," she said. "Managed all that and meeting Brandah too. I was careful when it came to asking her about Kivar and the Liarets, and she didn't really remember that much of what was covered in school - they had more Rahlicx history, and Kaalto itself. Just that the Liaret family line had been ruling for five or six generations, mostly fairly quiet and peaceful. They had a reputation as being 'men for the common people,' and were always butting heads with the families of entrenched old money or powerful exclusive guilds."

"I think that I like them even more now," Maria remarked. "But if the dynasty, if that's the word, was only five or six generations long, then did she know how they came into power? Somebody should have passed those details on. Was there another royal family, that the Liarets took over from, like Kivar took over and killed them?"

"I don't..." Isabel said, and was very surprised to get interrupted by a computer-synthesized voice from Michael's workstation.

"Negative. Before the accession of Granas the First, there was no royalty in power over the planet Antar, for a period of approximately five hundred Antarian years."

There was a hushed silence, before Alex asked Alex, "What is that?" His eyes were alive with keen interest.

The same mechanical voice didn't give Michael a chance to answer the question himself. "Program Identification: Interstellar history genie, version two hundred and five point seven ee. Do you wish the full build and authorship info?"

"No," Maria told it.

"Good thing, too," the Doctor said, almost talking to himself as he kept reviewing the minor details of infractions against the library property of the college. "Genie program like that, it'd keep us all afternoon if it recited who created and populated every part of itself."

"I just happened to find it in a program listing," Michael explain. "What is -" He broke off, considered, and then tapped the screen a few times. "I've put it on hold. Doctor, what's a genie program?"

"That's a generic term, if you'll excuse the word play, for an automated system that attempts to sort out natural language requests and give you what you want. In this case, I imagine it's an expert system that will access indexed files to explain parts of history to the questioner, in the level of detail you want, instead of letting you look up the files that you need yourself." The Doctor looked up at this point, as if the goings-on had finally caught his full attention. "Say, that sounds like just what you lot need to get yourselves started!"

"Yeah, and it might be a touch easier on you than learning their filing system, too, Doctor," Alex kidded him. "Okay, what do we want to ask him next?"

"Let me try again," Maria said, and waved at Michael to take the 'pause' off. After two unsuccessful tries, he did just that. "During that time where there was no royalty, who was in charge of Antar? Be descriptive in your answer, to around two hundred words, with attention given to the demeanour of the key factions, and the transitions between different eras."

"For seventy years after the fall of the last extant royal family, a single planetary council maintained strict order, believing that peace could only be kept if the entire planet was maintained under one universal law, seeking to eliminate all sources of conflict. Then that council, too, was overthrown, and each of the old Provinces of Antar formed its own regional assembly. The early Age of the Assemblies was considered to be quite orderly and benevolent, with a system in place where impartial representatives from distant regions would peacefully arbitrate conflicts. However, the arbitration system was subverted by networks of confederates forming agreements to rule in each other's favour, and was eventually no longer honored by enough of the Assemblies that the formalities were no longer attempted. This led to great rivalries between the Assemblies, to the point that many of them called out for Granas, a descendant of the old Royals, and a well respected philosopher, to assume the throne once again."

"My turn, okay?" Isabel said, and Maria nodded. "So Granas was - was related to the previous Royals, but that was so long ago that he's considered to be the start of a new dynasty?"

"Yes, or at least that is generally accepted. A perfect line of descent cannot be established, but Granas' stated geneaology was not questioned during his life, though the Kivarian regime has apparently worked to cast doubt on the royal connection of the previous ruling family."

"Pause it," Alex suggested. "That doesn't seem like it makes too much sense. If the Liarets hundreds and hundreds of years ago got thrown out, and the more recent ones were invited back as kings by the will of the people, does it really matter if there's any true DNA connection between them?"

"Maybe not, but I think that public spin in politics isn't always logical," Michael countered. "If he can influence some people by saying that they weren't 'legitimate' royalty anyway, Kivar doesn't have much to lose by making the claim."

"Except it might open him up for a counter-propaganda campaign contrasting the kings who were asked to rule versus Kivar himself as the guy who just took over," Isabel said. "And as interesting as this all is, I think that maybe we should concentrate on more recent events."

"Just a minute," Michael said. "I know it's not really on topic, but I want to hear what the long-ago Liaret kings got heaved-ho for. Then we can go to more relevant questions." Isabel shrugged agreeably, and Michael turned the voice receiver back on. "Very briefly, what was the reason for the fall of the early royal family, around the time that the strict planetary council was set up?"

"Contemporaneous sources are not in agreement about such details," the genie informed him. "Several writers active in court at the time speak of the Oceans tax scandal, in which great revenues were gathered from the populace and businesses in order to combat a growing persistent contaminant micro-organism in the Antarian oceans. After four years of the tax, a small group of iconoclast journalists publicly revealed evidence that a majority of the tax money had been diverted into construction funds for a new lunar city on Antar's furthest satellite. However, other references gathered by the Gevinar historian Maldar Wilcsinz have been used to argue that the Oceans tax issue was a manufactured issue, and possibly even that the information used against Vilander Liaret may have been falsified. Wilcsinz argues that the true reason for the 2618 overthrow was a growing tide of anti-royalist ill feeling among Antarian high society, perhaps inspired by the recent news that Rahlicx had replaced their own Feudal-nobility government and social structure with a computerized republic."

"Alright," Alex said. "So what should we ask next?"

"I'm sorry, but I don't think I know the answer to that question yet. Why don't you tell me more about your objectives?"

Maria caught the Doctor's eyes, and he was obviously just barely holding back a laugh. "Why not?" he said. "Obviously artificial intelligence is fairly advanced, even in a remote outpost like this. If the computer program thinks it can anticipate your questions by moving up to a higher level, then why not?"

Michael nodded decisively. "Genie, can you keep what we tell you in - in a locked file or something, so that not even Precept Zeldiss or - or the Board of Trustees could find out what we're here for?"

"Negative. That level of lock requires a class-A digital privacy seal, which is only issued to graduate students in good standing or higher ranks in the College. I'm sorry for the inconvenience."

"Darnit," Isabel muttered. The Doctor reached out across the table, realized that he wasn't going to get far enough that way, and got up to circle around and stand behind Michael. Alex's eyes brightened in pleasure as he realized that the Doctor was pointing his sonic screwdriver at the computer terminal.

"Class-A digital privacy seal granted, along with general Trustee-level access. Have a nice day!" the genie, (or maybe it was a slightly different part of the system programming,) chirped cheerfully.

"Genie, everything that we tell you or you tell us is now under our new digital privacy seal, right?" Michael asked it.

"Confirmed. In fact, our session up to this point has automatically been put under the seal. Do you wish to undo that action?"

"No, that's fine," he told it. "Okay, um, begin creating a file for our requirements, right?"

"File opened."

"First item, we - um, we believe that sometime in the last year, the Granilith returned to the Antarian sector, along with - with a person who we knew as Tess, who was associated with Ava, the bride of King Zan. Umm - oh, this gets complicated to explain..."

"Are you referring to the earthling hybrid so-called 'reincarnation' of Queen Ava dil Liaret, of the clan Derven-see out of Thrilacta?" the computer prompted. "Recreated out of Ava's DNA and earthling genes, along with her energy essence retrieved from the body shortly after her death?"

"Wow, yeah," Michael muttered. "That seal better be working."

"And I hope that nobody's listening to us in here?" Isabel said, looking around the small conference room that they had been given access to.

"Hmm - checking for bugs of that sort isn't my usual specialty," the Doctor admitted. "But I'll see what me and my screwdriver can do."

"So, do you have files on Earth?" Michael asked. "As in the home of 'earthlings'?"

"Minimal data available, including physical stats on galactic co-ordinates, orbital characteristics, physical characteristics including mass, radius, density, and gravitational strength, ocean and land makeup, and estimated sentient population. Native historical files not available, the only references in the historical archives involve expeditions from the Antarian sector, from the first exploratory team to discover sentient life on the planet, to recent political missions, including the Liaretian ship sent to hide the reconstituted Royal Four on Earth, and at least two confirmed Kivarian ships sent to find and eliminate them."

"Um, alright," Alex said. "Any further data needed to elaborate on the Tess item in the requirements file?"

"Two queries," the genie replied. "One - clarification of time frame. Please subdefine the term 'year.'"

"Use Earth solar year," Isabel instructed. "What's number two?"

"No actual query was supplied - what information do you require in relation to these background details?"

That stumped them all for a few seconds, and then Maria got it. "Right - you told it about Tess and the Granilith coming here, and got sidetracked defining the terms, but didn't ask it a question. Genie, append query: Where specifically did Tess land in the Granilith, and what has become of her, and it, since?"

"Item checks out. Next item?"

They spent a little while longer explaining the other things that they wanted to know, including what would be a good date and location for landing the TARDIS in Antar's past and learning more directly about the lives of the Royal Four and the prelude to Kivar's takeover, and a number of other details that people thought would be helpful. Just about thirty seconds after Michael started the search program running, there was a cry of intense agony from the hallway outside. Immediately Michael, Isabel, and Maria raced out the door.

"You lot are like that too, aren't you?" the Doctor grumbled towards Alex, even though he had hesitated after standing up. "Always running off at the worst moment..." But he shrugged and followed, Alex tagging along afterwards - after he made a point of returning Michael's console to a welcome screen. Only one of the five of them could return to their particular genie session, as he understood it.

The obvious source of the scream was lying on the corridor floor about thirty feet away from the door to their room - half on his back and half on his side, breathing raggedly, a Kaaltan about their own age or a bit older, probably an underclassman at the College. Isabel started to examine the stricken person, and quickly pulled aside a thick, loose jacket with a scorch mark in the panel. There were scorch marks underneath, too - a deep burn that probably went all the way down into a lung or some other similarly important vital organ. "Dammit, if only Max were here..."

Maria's reaction was a bit more practical. "_Medical emergency_!" she shouted, a truly impressive bellow that seemed to shake the walls. "_Ambulance_! _How do we summon a healer or a medical doctor around here_?"

Alex had only taken a few steps out of the door at that point, but when he turned back it had closed and locked on him, and he lost precious moments thumbing the control panel to get inside and start looking for an emergency responses program inside the library menu structure. (Too late he realized that he should have just pulled up the generic voice response dispatcher and asked it for help.)

The emergency medical personnel did get there, and take the body away while performing extreme resuccitation techniques on it, but somehow in her heart Maria knew that they had arrived too late to save the young man's life. A Kaaltan man and woman in a different style of uniform, maybe College police, arrived and started asking them questions about what they had seen and heard.

Nobody was worried until the man shook his head and muttered, "Something here doesn't add up. I'm going to have to ask the three of you to come with me to Security Detention. We'll go over the whole story again, and see if we can't get to the bottom of it."

The Doctor hurried up to the officer. "Why the three of them? Are they bound by law for a crime?"

"Nearly enough, Mister Time Lord," the Kaaltan shot back. "I am not going through the formalities of laying charges yet, but the College Charter permits me to hold them for questioning on suspicion of murder."

The Doctor's face grew very serious. "You would be one of the College Baliffs, then?" He nodded somberly.

"This is ridiculous!" Michael explained. "There's a video camera right up there, covering the scene of the action, yeah?" He pointed at a spot up in the join between the corridor wall and the ceiling. "Just check the tape, or whatever, and you'll see that he came from one direction, already hit, and we from the other."

"Shut up, Michael," Maria insisted, as Isabel maintained a stony and reserved silence. "You're not helping."

"No, he is not," the Baliff informed them. "The reception of all surveillance for this hallway has been disrupted by an unusual kind of interference, and as far as I know, the problem has not been resolved. Asking us to check the records to prove your innocence could be seen as a naive attempt to establish your ignorance of that complication."

"We **were** ignorant, maybe," Maria insisted.

"I vouch for the behaviour of all three of them," the Doctor insisted to the Baliff. "We were all together in our access room, until the - the victim screamed. I was out the door by the time Michael got to his side, just as he was about to fall down."

"I see, sir. And just exactly what were you researching? And just _how_ did you manage to hide your search file from me, using an access level that you have not been granted?"

The Doctor considered, then stayed silent. If he admitted anything about tampering with the library computers, that might be seen as incriminating him as an accomplice, especially in terms of the security camera. Only Alex really paid attention to his hand inside the pocket of his coat, which seemed to be manipulating something in a complicated way.

"I see, it's like that, is it?" the Baliff continued after a long moment of quiet. "Well, then. I'm tempted to take you into custody as well, Lord 'Doctor', but you're obviously a clever talker, and I don't especially want the Magistrate to get the notion that I've overstepped any boundaries when I next have to come before him. So..."

The Doctor had finished whatever he was doing in his pocket and moved on a conversational opening. "Forgive me for saying so, but in an institution of learning within a fairly small community like Kaalto township - you don't exactly have a lot of experience with murder investigations, do you?"

"No, I suppose I'm pleased to say that I don't. What are you getting at?"

"Just that - I know you'll try to do your job as best you can, and I can understand you being suspicious about us - but I'd hate my students to be stuck here because some crucial piece of evidence got missed. May I have your permission to investigate the circumstances myself? I've worked for law enforcement on several different worlds, back in my day."

The Baliff considered the Doctor's request. "I may regret this, but you've got a bargain, Doctor - on two conditions."

"Go ahead."

"One - You promise me you won't so much as step into that ship of yours until the investigation is closed. I've heard about how it appeared out of nowhere, so I expect it could disappear on me just as easily. I'm going to ask the Governor that you be barred from it, but I suspect you might be able to sneak past simple precautions if you had a mind to."

"Rose and I will need somewhere else to crash - we're used to sleeping in there, and all of our luggage is still inside."

"Rose is your mate?" the Bailiff asked.

"Oh, my, no - we're just friends, though she's been travelling with me for much longer than the student class."

"Well, such details will be handled by the Governor's office," the Bailiff said with a dismissive wave. "Secondly - you submit to a search for any tools with which you might falsify evidence or otherwise suborn the truth. I have learned something about Time Lords, you see. You are as clever as a Kafarran with your gadgets."

Once again, the Doctor seemed unhappy with the prospect, but allowed the Bailiff himself to conduct a search. First the burly Kaaltan came up with the sonic screwdriver. "Sonic matter manipulator, quite sophisticated," he admitted, "Could have affected our molecular relay systems, and explain just how you bypassed our computer security systems."

"I will require that instrument back when we are free to leave," the Doctor said coldly.

"If you clear yourself of the murder charge, I'll be happy to return it," the Bailiff answered. Next he fished into the pocket that the Doctor had been fiddling in. Alex's breath caught.

#

"So, what **are** you interested in buying?" Kyle asked in a little bit of exasperation, as Rose led the way out of a stall on Kaalto's main public concourse. "We've looked at jewelry, music players, perfume, and footwear, among other things, any of which, no offense, I would have said were up your alley. The Doctor told us both that the credit we've been granted should stand up to a fairly impressive shopping spree. What's with acting like a window shopper?"

"Hmm - possibly just habit," Rose allowed with a pensive pout. (Lord ha' mercy, Kyle breathed silently to himself.) "Not so much used to having the money to spend, you know?" Before Kyle could start to nod, she took off on another tack, both conversationally and in terms of physical travel between the market venues. "It's more than that, though - I want to kick an experience off like this by buying something great."

"I think that we've kicked the experience off a while ago," Kyle grumbled, only just loud enough for her to hear. "According to my clock, the first half is getting close to wrapping up with no score, and then we'll have to wait through halftime and then kick again..." Rose had stopped and was staring at him with the most extreme look of blank stupefaction on her face, that Kyle broke off when he actually noticed her. "Sorry, American football references I guess."

"I don't even pay that much attention to **real** football," Rose replied. "Err - you know what I mean?" Kyle nodded, just to get off the topic. "Yes, I do realize that we've been looking a while, but I want the first thing I buy to be - well, not just great, if I have a chance. I'd like it to be perfect!"

"Then you've made your wish in the right place, meandering stranger," someone new told her. Rose and Kyle both turned to see what looked like a gypsy Kaaltan standing outside her tent - she was pretty in an alien way, with long curly black-purple hair worn loose down her back, and pale rosy skin that wasn't that different in shade from - well, from Rose's own, say. The long, elaborate, flouncy, and brightly colored outfit she wore only seemed to accentuate the 'Romani' effect. "Come, and let us see if I can find you your perfect wish." She reached out a hand.

"Watch out-" Kyle started, but he wasn't in time to stop Rose from reaching out and clasping the native. Gypsy-girl seemed a bit surprised by something, but that expression turned very quickly into a pleased smile. With that, Kyle decided to just come along and watch out for Rose as best he could - explaining might take a while and be awkward in this situation.

Once they were all three inside the tent, the shopkeeper girl offered them little flute-cylinders of one of the Antarian drinks that they had both tried the night before, and introduced herself as Emani. "I'm Rose Tyler, and this is Kyle Valenti," Rose explained. "We're new around here, just arrived recently."

"So I suspected," Emani agreed, taking a dainty sip herself.

"I - well, I'm happy to look at what you have to offer," Rose continued, "but promising 'a perfect wish' might be hyping yourself too much."

"Hyping?" Emani blinked. "I'm not sure if I've ever heard that word before. Like a starship, travelling in hyperspace?"

Rose immediately reassessed. Even the TARDIS translation field was having a problem with some English slang, it seemed. "Over-advertising yourself, I suppose. Promising more than you can deliver."

"Oh, let's just see. Come over and stand before the mirror," Emani insisted, and with a small shrug, Rose did, and Kyle followed. This mirror seemed to be real and conventional, as opposed to an energy field or whatever. (Michael and Maria had had a mirror field generator in her room - Isabel had insisted on going to use it after breakfast, since her own quarters hadn't had any such amenity.) It was also large, at least seven feet high, Kyle reckoned, and around half that wide. The dimensions reminded him of a carnival funhouse mirror, the ones that were distorted to show anybody as shorter or fatter, or whatever. But the reflection of Rose seemed to be quite accurate enough...

Until it changed. The sensation was somewhat familiar to Kyle by this point, and sure enough, when he looked over, Emani was frowning in a familiar concentrating way. (In fact, at this point, a faint sense of familiarity about the Kaaltan girl that Kyle had been faintly perceiving suddenly snapped into a sharper focus.) Rose, of course, didn't recognize the sensation of a mind-warp, and gasped in wonder.

After surprising him at the bathroom door that morning in her skimpy nightclothes, Rose had dressed for the day in a way that was conservative and casual at the same time - a blue jean jacket slightly open over a buttoned, collar shirt with a reddish plaid pattern, and blue jeans that were unremarkable except for one whole in the knee. Even her shoes were comfortable, practical, and relaxed, light white sneakers.

But of all that, only the shoes could be seen in the mirror now. Instead, that image of Rose was wearing a simply elegant black gown, with spaghetti-thin shoulders, silk-like fabric that clung to her figure, and a hemline that hovered somewhere about halfway between the top of her knees and total indecency. The black of the garment was only broken by a few accent marks in a rich slate gray, alien icons perhaps. Kyle had to admit that the vision was striking and beautiful.

But there was information that she didn't have that Kyle was _forced_ to volunteer now. "That's a mindwarp," he hissed at Rose angrily, not caring too much if the shop girl heard that he knew the truth. "She's tricking us, literally fooling our eyes into seeing what she wants. And when she had you touch her hand, she was probably trying to get a psychic flash from you..."

Rose shook herself slightly out of the deep stare that had been focused at the mirror, and then turned to Kyle with a slightly puzzled expression. "Well, of course it's a trick, on some level - I'm obviously not wearing a dress of any kind, yet, so the mirror isn't showing either of us the truth. That doesn't mean that Emani wants to hurt us, or even to defraud us from credit. In fact, it seems like a clever and helpful use to put a naturally deceptive power to - demonstrating something conveniently."

She cocked her head, looking back at the mirror more critically. "And I'm not surprised or dismayed at all if she was looking through my head a little bit, not if this is the kind of thing she could pull out. I always wanted to design beautiful outfits, but could never get them to look right on paper like they felt in my head, never mind with actual fabric being worn by a person." Rose now turned to look back at Emani. As she met Rose's even gaze, the mirror turned back to Rose in denim and plaid shirt. "And you can make that dress for me, for real?"

"Yes, not easy, but for you, I will fashion it," Emani insisted. "The fabric is already here - Spider silk from Garvickle." She waved across the tent as she stepped behind a sort of sales counter. "I can cut and put the pieces together myself, but to do justice to your dream, I'll need to contract the services of a more skilled tailor for measuring the pattern. Could you please thumb the contract, and I'll take a swipe of your bracelet to verify credit and put a deposit hold down."

"Umm..." Rose looked around, bewildered, and caught the cautionary look that Kyle sent to her. "I'll want to look through the contract terms carefully, of course. And - and just how much will this dream cost me?"

The figure that Emani quoted didn't mean much offhand to Rose and Kyle - when they checked, they found that it was a hefty majority of the credit that she had available, but not so much that she couldn't do a little 'bargain shopping for accessories' and have some emergency money left over. It took Rose a while to be satisfied about the contract, specifically that it called for Emani to produce the dress that she had shown her, in a satisfactory condition, and not just any old dress. Emani herself seemed amused by the fuss Rose was making.

"I'm an artist, dear, not a charlatan, for all that I use some of the dramatic tricks," she insisted. "Nobody ever tries to back out of a contract once they see my goods - not since I started running credit checks to save myself the headache of completing a customized product for somebody who didn't have the money in the first place."

The tailor, Mizah Gorvan, insisted on having Rose strip to her underclothes to be painstakingly measured for a 'gown so enthralling,' and despite Kyle's eagerness to watch, Rose eventually had her way that only Emani would be present. As Kyle waited outside the tent with the bemused Gorvan, an upbeat pop melody that probably wouldn't hit the charts for years started playing inside. A few seconds later, the balled-up jeans sailed through the tent opening and landed unerringly in Kyle's arms. "You answer it," Rose called. "We're kinduv busy just now."

So Kyle dug out the cell phone, and found to his surprise that there wasn't a proper call coming in, just a text message. "Legal trouble at coklege. If u can, sneak in and access our reseasch file. I gave u access. Doc."

Kyle stared at the words and couldn't fight the urge to blink anymore. What exactly did 'Legal trouble' _mean_? What had happened to Kyle's friends? And why was it so important for them to 'sneak in' and access the file? (A research file, Kyle assumed. The doctor had been hitting the keys the wrong number of times, and that didn't seem like him.)

Despite his impatience, Kyle waited until the measuring was finished, and the tailor had stopped asking Rose questions about the dress, before he showed her the message. "Oh, no," she muttered. "Umm, what if you..."

"It might take both of us to get into the college without the legal authorities there knowing we've come," Kyle pointed out, "and if I know the doctor, he granted _you_ access. He barely even knows me." Rose nodded. "I know that you're eager to see this dress ready as soon as you can, but they'll hold it for you. You've got a contract, right?"

"Okay, yeah," Rose agreed, and went over to the two artisans to tell them that she'd have to leave for a little bit. Emani assured her that it was no trouble, that she'd be able to try it on as soon as she got back, and they'd make alterations if necessary until it fit perfectly.

"One more question?" Kyle said. "Or maybe a few. Is there a back way into the college campus that isn't commonly used?"

Both the natives seemed surprised by the question. "Well, yes actually," Emani said. "I took a few art history classes, and - and when I was going straight from work, I went up to the ninth level, and straight down the blue-D corridor from there. There isn't even a door or a sign, just a fairly smooth transition from residential family units to student study rooms."

"Great," Rose said, smiling. "Can you just give us those directions in a bit more detail? We're not used to the layout of the township."


	7. Chapter 7

"It's all your fault," Michael grumbled over across the narrow aisle in the detention center.

"Who, me?" Maria shot back immediately. Michael nodded slowly, as if to emphasize the guilt that he was laying at her feet. "What's all my fault? Do you think that I really masterminded a plot to kill that poor boy?"

"No, but you ran out first thing, as soon as there was a scream, no pause for discussion or caution. I only ran after you because I was worried about you getting into trouble alone, and..."

Isabel took a deep breath and preferred to use her 'Stop bickering, little kids' voice. (It would probably be years and years until she actually had toddlers to use it on, but in the meantime, Michael and Maria ensured that that particular voice got plenty of exercise.) She was sitting on the other end of a bench from Maria - they'd been put in a cell together, possibly because the Bailiff hadn't wanted to put a pair of mixed genders in together.

The center nearly matched the expectations that Isabel had of a ship's brig on 'Star Trek' or a prison in a far-future space station, with one exception. There were the bright gray walls with a faintly silver shine to them, bright lights, and cleanness everywhere, a kind of hush in the space, but force fields at the front of the cells were conspicuously absent. Instead, two grids of intersecting dull metal bars obstructed Isabel's view of Michael, including part of his face. She didn't mind that at the moment.

"Michael, cut it out," Isabel started out, as no-nonsense as she could make herself. "We all got up and ran for the door at around the same time. Maria only got there first because she was sitting closest. I do **not** believe that you were thinking of anything other than trying to find out who was in trouble, and helping him or her, and frankly I'd respect you less if you were." She sighed. "And Maria, don't rise to him. I know it's hard with Michael, but seriously, my nerves can't take much more of this."

"Okay." Maria sighed. "Would it be okay with your nerves if I asked how a cell like this can hold Antarians - or you guys? I mean, with your abilities..."

"Careful," Isabel muttered. What Maria had said was okay in itself, but they didn't want the authorities to hear anything about how Michael and Isabel were half Antarian, because they'd have more questions about how it had come about and why they didn't really look Antarian. "Anyway, the bars must be uranium, or some other really heavy elemental metal. Like the stuff that - that Pierce's organization used at Eagle Rock." That should be obscure enough. "I did try using my powers on it, just a little, though I didn't expect it to work. It's like the heavy atomic nuclei can suck up the energy that I send at them."

"Hmm." Maria considered. "I know that this is a stretch, but what about - about disintegrating me into my molecules and moving me past the barrier?"

"I can do that for you, sure," Michael said. "The tricky part is re-assembling all those molecules into a Maria once again. They don't really remember the way they were supposed to fit together before, like a jigsaw puzzle."

Maria's face fell. "Have you actually tried this? On what?"

"There was this stray cat that was hanging out on the fire escape outside his living room window," Isabel drawled in a bored tone. Michael shot her an angry look.

"Oh, Lemon?" Maria exclaimed. "Michael, how could you..."

"You're the only one who called him by that ridiculous name..."

"I tell you, I've never seen a cat with such bright yellow spots on his coat..." Maria sighed deeply and stood up to start pacing around the small space she was allowed to move through. "I remember now - Mom dragged me up to Phoenix for that stupid trade show, and when I got back you said that he'd just stopped coming around."

"Well, he had," Michael pointed out. "So I didn't tell you that I was involved in the reason why..."

"What brought up a discussion of Lemon the Cat's fate?" Alex asked, stepping into view of both the cells. Maria pointed at Alex and actually stuck her tongue out at Michael, who shrugged elaborately. "I would've thought there would be bigger topics for dialog at this point."

"Not until you got here, not really sweetie," Isabel said, blowing him a kiss. "Is there any news?"

"Not really," Alex admitted. "I tagged along with the Doctor when he went to talk to the dead guy's roommates, but that seemed to pan out like a dead end to me. No enemies except for a few rivals in his classes, nothing suspicious that they've noticed in the past few months. His parents live and work in the core Township, a synthetic food chemist and administrative assistant."

"They have fake food here?" Maria said, wrinkling up her cheeks.

"Not really the important part, sweetie," Isabel told her softly. "So, what else is he up to? The Doctor, is he going to talk to the parents?"

"To be honest, I didn't ask, sorry," Alex said. "Just that I wanted to go check in with you guys, and he mentioned a few things that I could ask the Bailiff if he seemed to be in a talkative mood."

"Okay," Michael said. "And what about K..."

Alex turned to Michael and silently shhed him, and Michael immediately got the hint and broke off. Alex hesitated, and moved closer to the girls' cell. They crowded close to their side of the cross-bars, as Alex dropped his voice. "I think he sent off a message, to the Super-cell, but I'm not sure what or why. We probably shouldn't talk about them or go to meet them until they initiate contact, just to be on the safe side."

"Well, I don't think that we need to worry about going to meet anybody, just at the moment," Maria pointed out, a bit more loudly.

"No, I don't suppose so," came yet another new voice - the Bailiff. "I know that your leader the Doctor seems to think that he'll find some little bit of evidence to set you free before night falls on the cave township, but I wouldn't count on that myself. Now, young messenger boy, what have you to say to me?"

"Have you been listening to us for that long?" Michael asked angrily.

"Um, how long?" There was a moment's pause. "My guard mentioned that Alex Whitman wished to talk to me if I could spare the time."

"Yes, a few questions if you'd be so good as to answer," Alex said, now looking totally at ease. "First, what's your name?"

"Excuse me?"

"You know all of ours - well, except for the Doctor, but that's what everybody calls him. You do have a name, don't you?"

"By tradition, it's not used or spoken of while I'm on duty," the Bailiff huffed importantly. "Like your friend, I am simply The Bailiff."

"What if there's another Bailiff, who you might be confused with?" Isabel asked.

"In practice, that seldom happens."

"But we're new here," Maria said, pressing the line. "We get confused _so_ easily."

The Bailiff sighed and surrendered gracefully. "My surname is Kavalos."

"Thank you, Mister Bailiff," Alex said. "Second - it's clear, both from Maria's description of what she saw, the medical tech's report, and the Morguer's examination, that Baren Ischith was killed by a beam of focused radiation - a laser beam of some description, that is. None of my friends were found with any sort of laser emitter. Doesn't this suggest that they're innocent, by itself?"

"Well, leaving aside the possibility that - that a 'murder weapon' might have been thrown away, hidden, or destroyed in the time between the crime, and the arrival of the authorities - that line of argument could only apply for Miss DeLuca."

"How do you figure that?" Michael asked, his voice starting to get calm and dangerous.

"I've had all five of you bio-scanned, and the results analyzed functionally," the Bailiff told them with more of a smile than anybody was comfortable. "Michael, Isabel - I suspect that I wouldn't be able to identify your species or your planet of origin even if I tried - which I didn't. Since you declined to give such details when I first questioned you, I am not going to try to track you down unless it seems a path that I must pursue for my investigation." He took a deep breath. "Where was I? Oh, yes - what I **did** find out was that your energy signature is close enough to an Antarian's that you are probably capable of the same sort of abilities that we are. An Antarian would be able to modulate energy and adjust the molecules of any transparent substance in such a way as to generate a 'laser beam', as Alex put it, quite literally out of thin air. And the air crystal necessary could be dissolved, its molecules released, in the next moment. The two of you are literally walking murder weapons."

"As is, by the same line of reasoning, every person of Antarian ancestry in the Township," Maria put in. "That must be a pain for keeping up law and order."

"Yes, but generally we are not a passionate or violent people," the Bailiff said with a dismissive wave of his hand. "Was there anything else - Alex?"

"Just one thing," Alex said, smiling secretively himself. "When the cameras in that hallway were turned off, do you know if any of the other security systems were also disabled?"

The Bailiff seemed to be confused by the question. "What other security systems?"

"I don't know, is there something for - I don't know, putting out fires, or catching someone on a - no, sorry, no rampages here on peaceful Kaalto. Never mind."

"No," the Bailiff insisted. "I **will** find out more about this, if there's any other system in that area that could possibly be considered the province of security, and what their status was." He took a deep breath. "The guard will escort you out when you're done, Whitman."

"Thanks." He reached out to brush fingers with Isabel. "Have to go back and see about a room for - Oh! One more thing, sheesh, I hate to keep coming out with 'just one more thing' again and again, but..." He trailed off.

The Bailiff sighed. "Yes, what is it?"

"I was hoping to come back here and bring my friends a few of their personal things, but I wasn't sure what would be allowed."

"Not much," the Bailiff told him gruffly. "The guard can get you a list. And they won't be here for much longer."

"What?" Michael asked. "We're not?"

The Bailiff turned around to fix him with a fierce glare. "Not at all. These detention units are only while we process the paperwork for you. Then you'll be transferred to permanent jail cells until your series of hearings is over."

Maria groaned slightly. Not trusting himself to speak, Alex made a faint wave and headed back towards the guard's station.

#

It was surprisingly easy for Rose and Kyle to follow the directions that the concourse salesgirl had given them and sneak into the Kaalto college campus via the back way. Figuring out how to proceed once they were obviously inside the college sector, on the other hand, was not nearly so easy.

"No, that's no good," Kyle advised Rose, after they'd both poked their heads around an open doorway into a large open area filled with storage shelves of 'bookfilms' (or something else, but that's what they looked like,) and about half a dozen students ranged around a few computer tables and talking. "Yes, there's an empty table and workstation that we could get to, but they'll notice us, probably have questions. If the Doctor said 'legal trouble,' then we need to avoid attracting that kind of attention."

"So we'll need to find an unlocked room, with a computer in it, but nobody around?" Rose clarified.

"Yeah." And Kyle sighed, hoping that they'd be able to find such a place. "Come on, let's try down here.

It took a little while, and more run-ins with other travellers in the hallways than Kyle liked, but eventually they found their room, and it even had a locking mechanism on the door that Kyle could work out from inside. Soon they were on the computer station's general voice response mode, and Kyle was struck by the inversion of that scene in Star Trek Four, (one of the best ones really,) where Scotty tries to talk into a computer's mouse. This time, the visitors were coming from a less sophisticated place to more advanced computer systems.

"Let's see - um, do you have a user record on file for someone only called 'The Doctor'?" Kyle hazarded.

"Affirmative."

"Did he perform any searches through available data?"

"Friend or Administrator access required to track another account's usage. Please submit identification and authentication."

Kyle looked over at Rose. "Identify me as Rose Tyler," she said. "I hope that works - oh, and run the usage tracking under my access."

"Account for Rose Tyler is set up with biometric authentication. Please present your thumbprint."

"Um - where do I stick it?" she asked, after looking around the terminal.

That seemed to stimy the computer for a moment - apparently it didn't have a pat answer for such an 'obvious' question. "You can find the touch sensitive pad to the right of the keyboard interface."

"Oh, this? I - um, I thought it was for pen input." In fact, the pad looked like it might have been a part of a high-end computer terminal back on earth, down to the little black hard stylus that was clipped next to it."

"It is multipurposed hardware for that application as well." So Rose pressed her right thumb firmly against the black, slightly soft surface. "Thumbprint recognized. The Doctor performed one search - requesting access to the College's disciplinary regulations."

"After whoever it was got into legal hot water," Kyle guessed. "But that can't have been what he wanted us to collect, can it?"

"Hmm - no, I suspect not," Rose decided. "This must be something more secret, with all the sneaking around. This seems like a relatively civilized place - they can't be withholding legal documents from the people who need them most. It must be a search that somebody else went through." She took half a breath. "Computer, did the Doctor grant himself access to any other searches or tag them for later followup? Or other files, if he identified them specifically, not just giving himself rights for a large subject area."

"Working, please wait," the computer said, and they waited for nearly two minutes. "Seventy-three matches found."

"That's too many," Kyle muttered.

"Let's take a look," Rose insisted, and the listing flowed down the screen and scrolled away. After checking the first six or seven through, she was less certain.

"He must have granted himself access to every search a student's run today, just out of idle curiosity," Kyle decided. "Okay, let's tackle this from another angle. Does Isabel Evans have an authentication account?"

"Affirmative."

"Can Rose track her searches?"

"Affirmative."

"Show them."

"Three matches found." Rose looked through them more quickly than she'd considered the Doctor's results.

"Just asking about how to use the system, and general historical documents. I don't think she's the one either," she decided. "How about Alex Whitman?"

It was another few minutes before they finally found the Genie file waiting under Michael's searches - he was the one both Rose and Kyle had least expected to actually get results in a computer and library environment.

"Search was a 'history genie' session," the computer explained to them when Kyle asked for more details about Michael's most complicated search.

"A genie?" Rose asked. "Like a rub-the-bottle..."

"What is a genie, briefly?" Kyle asked the computer.

"A computer routine designed to intelligently perform a task on behalf of the user with only general or conversational directives, as contrasted to a conventional program which typically requires many very detailed requirements, specified in exactly the syntax expected."

"Sounds like a good idea right now," Kyle admitted. "Okay, has this genie finished the task assigned it?"

"Affirmative."

"Can we retrieve the results?"

"Affirmative. Result set will fill eighteen double-sided sheets of standard hard copy material..."

"Like a paper printout?" Rose asked, smiling. "You still use paper?"

"Not paper in the technical sense," the computer corrected her, "as it is not constructed from tree pulp, but a similar process working with synthetic plastics. Results could also be spoken out loud, which woud take approx two sectors, eleven minums of the day..."

"Okay, we don't have time for that," Kyle said. "How long to generate the printout?"

"Two minims."

"Do it," Rose said. "And - is there any way that we can get the results on - on something like a disk or a flash key or whatever - lord, I'm not good even with Ea - with computers back home..."

"Results can be written to a pocket chip," the computer informed them.

"Ooh, good."

"Please insert your chip into the writer located on the left side of the keyboard."

Kyle and Rose exchanged an exasperated look. "We, umm, we don't have a chip yet," Kyle said. "Is there - is there any way you can issue one?"

The computer considered for a few seconds. "Do you have your credit bracelets on your person?"

"Yes," Rose said. "Do we need to pay for the chips?"

"Negative, this unit is not equipped for processing payment or requisitioning chips. However, the bracelets have computer memory that can be accessed, and some of that storage is not used by the traditional identity and credit functions. One bracelet will not have quite enough free capacity to save the full search results, but two will be sufficient to split the load between."

"Alright," Kyle said. "Where do I swipe my wrist?"

It was less of a swipe and more holding his bracelet in an awkward position near the base of the screen as a considerable amount of data was written, and then Rose taking her turn. Kyle then collected his papers.

"Thank you," Rose told the computer, smiling slightly. "On my authority, all records of our session, and the genie search results, will be wiped when we leave the room, right?"

"Command logged and verified," the machine told her. "One notification before that event is fired?"

"Umm - yeah, sure."

"If secrecy is a concern, you should be warned that the use of your credit bracelets for mercantile functions before the data dumps have been retrieved and wiped from their circuits may reveal the presence of your search results."

"Oh, no," Rose said, looking back at Kyle. She really wanted to go back and collect her dress before meeting up with the Doctor - but Emmalin would want to swipe her bracelet and finalize the payment. She didn't think that the gypsy alien girl would be likely to turn them into the legal authorities for anything, especially after she'd gotten her credit transfer, but how could they be sure? And being unable to use the bracelets would be inconvenient in lots of other ways too, especially if they were still wearing them and couldn't explain to any of the Kaaltans why they would prefer not to swipe.

"We've got to leave now, anyway," Kyle said, crossing over and taking her hand. "It'll be okay."

"Yeah," she agreed, unlocking the door and stepping back out. As Kyle followed her, the computer beeped, probably to signal that it was following her last command and wiping itself. "We'd better go back to the TARDIS first thing, and stash the printout there at least. Maybe I can get the info transferred and off our bracelets by myself."

"Does the TARDIS have a computer built into it?" Kyle said. "Well, I guess it would probably need something of the sort to help the Doctor plot a course through time..."

"Yeah, it's hard to recognize any part of it as computer hardware, but it works like that," Rose explained. "I'll show you once we're inside."

#

Kyle felt nervous as they raced quietly for the 'back way' out of the College. He hadn't been at all sure that he'd be able to figure out the way back for this part, that wasn't covered in the detailed instructions that they'd got, because once they got inside the campus, they'd been looking around so much for a suitable empty room with a computer terminal in it. But Rose appeared to have kept careful track of each turning, because she led the way unerringly, (well, she took a few steps down one corridor before apparently realizing that something was wrong, and turning around, but Kyle didn't hold that against her.) Kyle just stayed a few paces back and followed, paying at least as much attention to Rose's bottom in tight blue denim as the details of the turnings. Hmm, maybe that was why he hadn't remembered in the first place.

So they made it out of the college, and back down to the edge of the shopping Concourse, and from there Rose led him on to the doorways by which they had first entered the public shopping and gathering area. Now, suddenly, as if her memory had run out entirely, she turned to Kyle. "Where from here? How do we get back to - to your rooms, and the TARDIS? I, umm, I can't really remember, I know I should be able to..."

"We took a local transit," Kyle reminded her, and Rose nodded with approval for that. "I, um, I think that the stop was over that way." He pointed off to the left as they faced 'out' the Concourse doors, and when she nodded again, but didn't move, Kyle decided to lead the first time. (Would Rose check out his backside as well? No, she seemed a bit too distraught at what had been happening to worry about things like that - just now.) It was easy enough to find the designated waiting area for those who wanted to ride the local - a small wheeled vehicle that made its way down a small reserved 'road' - really just two slightly depressed lanes through the walkway corridors. There were spots marked off every so often where pedestrians could cross the 'road' if no transit vehicle was approaching in either direction. From here, it looked like they'd need to cross to reach the waiting area for a 'bus' heading back their way, which they hadn't had to do when getting off.

Rose grabbed Kyle's arm just as he started to get to full walking speed in that direction. "Did - did we need to swipe our bracelets when getting onto the transit? To pay a small fare, that kind of thing?"

"Oh, I didn't even think of that, dammit," Kyle muttered. "If we did, then it's probably safer to just follow the transit route on foot. It wasn't really that long - only five minutes or so, and that thing must do forty miles an hour between stops easy. Allowing for the stops - well, it's possibly another mile, or three quarters of one, which is a fair hike, but... but we _didn't_ need to swipe," he finally said, and Rose nodded sheepishly. "I asked the driver about it, because we both assumed we'd need to pay, but he said the locals were free to everybody."

"Yeah, sorry," Rose said. "I remembered that bit just as you got up to forty miles an hour."

"Well, no harm done," Kyle pointed out, and the two of them smiled at each other as they walked over and - and couldn't cross the transitway immediately because there was a vehicle coming in towards the stop in the same direction that they had travelled in the morning. After it had passed, and while passengers were piling on and off, they crossed and took their place in the waiting queue. Kyle noticed at this point that the transitway made a fairly lazy ninety-degree turn to the right at this point, right after the stop - or before the stop, for the way that they wanted to go. So their vehicle would arrive from the right, as it were, slow down to take the turn, and then come into the stop. Possibly it was making some kind of detour for the shopping Concourse itself - Kyle hadn't seen any transit vehicles inside the Concourse proper, and it probably wasn't coincidence that there was a stop just outside these doors. Maybe there were transit connections for each of the major ways in and out.

Then Rose tugged on his arm, and when Kyle turned slightly, she leaned against his side and whispered into his ear. Rose wasn't particularly short, and Kyle certainly wasn't tall, for all that he had made the basketball team. What he lacked in inches on the court, he made up for in accuracy and agility - but anyway, she was able to get into position with only a bit of rising onto the tips of her toes and Kyle didn't have to bend down to help her. Something about the intimacy of the pose made him freeze in place anyway.

"What about the plastic printouts?" was all that she whispered, though. "You have them safe? We don't want anybody to see what's on them, especially not before we can review the results."

Kyle just tapped one of his baggy pants pockets and smiled at her. Just at that point, the transit vehicle did appear around the corner - a bit like the Roswell public bus, but less long, and without solid walls - there was a roof, and railings so that the people sitting down near the edge of the coach couldn't easily fall down out of it. This particular vehicle had been fairly full, and the number of passengers who disembarked for the Concourse weren't nearly as many as those waiting to go home after their shopping, or whatever. Kyle and Rose were the last two that were admitted for standing room on the coach, and four people who had arrived after them were quite upset at being told that they'd have to wait for the next ride.

"What's our stop?" Kyle asked Rose as the coach started back along its route.

"Umm - darnit, I don't remember seeing a sign or anything," Rose muttered. "Think I'll recognize it when I see it. There was a logo on the wall - like a silver Christmas wreath. Come to think of it, might be just 'Township admin.' That sounds familiar."

"Very comforting," Kyle muttered to himself, as the bus continued to speed up.

#

But as it happened, the driver did call out 'Township administration' as the fourth-next stop, and as they were waiting for him to come to a stop, Kyle spotted the shiny leaf circle that Rose had mentioned. Their first choice for which passageway to take out of the larger chamber where the localway had left them was a mistake, because the hall itself was symmetrical, and both Kyle and Rose had forgotten to account for needing to cross the localway again, but that didn't cost them a long delay in the end, and soon enough they were finally coming up the hallway that they both remembered as where...

"What the _bloody_ hell?" Rose called out, suddenly truly incensed at what she was looking at. A few workmen in dark blue uniforms were still busy at the TARDIS doors where they protruded out into the corridor, using small hand-held laser devices to put the finishing touches on - on a kind of cage, with the bars made out of dull grey metal. Quite obviously, the contraption was barring her access into the timeship, and it was hard to imagine any kind of a purpose to the cage other than just that. "Why are you doing this?" she screamed more clearly at one of the Kaaltan natives.

"Blocking access to this - this Time Lord contraption," he replied matter-of-factly. "Only way we could work out of doing it that seemed likely. Director of Justice signs the work order, but of course he doesn't provide any suggestions as to how to get a job done. Well, that's not his job, is it, I suppose. If Engineer Kralos was around, he might have had a brighter idea, but... well, you know what the Savarran flu is like."

"Not really," Rose said weakly, all the fire drained out of her when the workman had mentioned this 'Director of Justice.' Kyle supposed he knew how she felt, a little. If these 'legal difficulties' were serious enough that the township administration felt that the Doctor needed to be kept out of his TARDIS at all costs, then things were obviously serious. Was the Doctor in legal custody himself, or would they only have gone to these lengths if he was out on bail or the equivalent? Kyle had heard of the cliche of the cops telling a suspect 'Don't leave town', but confiscating or impounding a vehicle to make sure of it seemed to be a different sort of deal. Then again, the TARDIS wasn't really the equivalent of a car - it wasn't that much use for getting around within Kaalto's jurisdiction, and once the Doctor was inside it, there would be nothing else that the law could do to prevent his escape. Maybe these bars were just a second form of insurance, in case he was able to break out of jail...

"Oh, no, I guess if you're visitors, maybe you wouldn't," the workman told Rose affably, and then, visibly, the other shoe dropped. "Oh, are you - um, you're friends of the..."

"Of the Time Lord, yes," Rose agreed with as much pride as she could scrape up. "I'm his closest Companion, and was living inside the TARDIS here, as is my custom."

"I believe that alternate facilities will be provided for you, and his Lordship, but they're not ready yet," one of the other workmen said, from the other side of the cage. He tested it with a good yank and then put his laser welder into a belt pouch. "The kid was making a fuss about that."

"Yes, sorry," the first one who Rose spoke to agreed. "We're done here, I think." He started packing up his own tools.

"We can't even get through to my room!" Kyle pointed out. Actually, if he had gone edgewise and been careful about his posture and breathing, he might have been able to maneuver through the space provided between the cage and the far side of the corridor - and Rose too, as she was a slender young woman, and even the feminie curves she posessed didn't stick out too far.

"Yeah, I know," the workman agreed. "There'll be lots of complaints about this, I don't doubt, but what else could we do?" He sighed. "You can go around the other way, as I'll have to do to meet up with the rest of the crew looks like. So I'll show you the way if you need it."

"You're all heart," Rose muttered, but they followed him disspiritedly. Though neither mentioned it, Kyle was acutely aware that without access to the TARDIS, they couldn't upload the data from their bracelets to its computer, or even wipe them clean again in order to rely only on the plastic printout. There hadn't been much in the way of electronic gear in any of the guest rooms - a video player, and communicator, and the door locks themselves - but none of those seemed likely to let them work with data storage on their bracelets. What was their next step? Well, Alex and Michael had said that they'd been able to order food without paying for it the night before - but that was then. Courtesies would probably be much scantier now that some of their ensemble was in legal hot water.

The welder guy pointed the other end of their dormitory hallway, (not that necessary, Kyle had been thinking that it looked familiar,) and he led Rose up to his room, opening the door with his thumb. Just as the door was about to swing back closed and give them a bit of extra privacy, another door just around the corner opened up and Alex charged out, putting his foot in the way of Kyle's door. "Boy, am I glad to see you guys," he said, talking fast and excitedly. "Thought about trying to send you a message, but I wasn't sure how to use your cell phone number with these Kaaltan communicators, Rose, and figured that it might draw attention to you at..." He looked around, waited a moment, and stepped inside Kyle's room himself. Once the doors, (his own and Kyle's,) had closed, he finished: "-to you at the wrong time. You did get the Doctor's message, and go find the historical data we need, right?" His eyes were brightly hopeful.

"What the hell happened in there, Whitman?" Kyle asked irritably. "All we know for sure is 'legal troubles.' Who exactly is in what trouble?"

"He asked first, Kyle," Rose said, and under her disapproving glance Kyle pulled the plastic sheets out of his paper, and waved them meaningfully at Alex. (This had the extra benefit of unfolding them.)

"No, it's okay, I can explain, though it might take a while if you want more than the headlines," Alex said, sitting carefully on the edge of Kyle's Antarian bed, (which he had abandoned in favor of a jerryrigged hammock.) "Michael, Isabel, and Maria are being held by the college Bailiff on the suspicion of a murder, though the last I heard there's a good possibility that Maria may get released when she goes through processing, and be free by this evening. Not much of a case against her."

"Whose murder?" Rose had to ask.

"Umm - I heard the name, but - well, anyway, he's just some kid, a student at the college, who happened to get blasted near to where we were working. They - the three of them charged out to see what was wrong when they heard a scream, so they were the first ones at the scene, and the Bailiff finds that very suspicious, on top of us all being strangers."

"Great, so he's one of those type of lawman, huh?" Kyle grumbled. Alex shot him a puzzled look. "Not that that was ever one of my Dad's failings, but I know the type - small town sheriff who goes for the easy collar, doesn't like anybody who wasn't born within ten miles of where he was, and doesn't stretch for an answer that he wasn't expecting."

"Alright," Rose told Alex. "Well, as Kyle showed you, we've got your search results on a plastic printout, and haven't really looked at them. I'm not even sure what questions you asked your Genie. We - um, we also got the same data transferred onto our credit bracelets," and she lifted up her wrist to show it, "with the unfortunate side-effect that if we use them for paying for anything, whoever we pay might know that we've been futzing with them."

"Oh, I see," Alex said. "Not sure I can help with that, except for picking up the tab for dinner and anything else we need immediately."

"What about the Doctor?" Kyle asked Alex. "He wasn't listed among the people who were under arrest or whatever, so where is he?"

"Still in the College, I think, investigating the murder himself," Alex said softly. "He might want your help now that you've finished the other errand, Rose - the two of you are a long established team and I think he feels more comfortable with you."

"Maybe," Rose said, looking around as if expecting some ghost of the Doctor to confirm or deny that notion of Alex's. "Any idea of how I could find him?"

"Can't you just call him on your phone, or text message him back from the message he sent us?" Kyle said.

"Umm - I hadn't thought of getting his number from that message," Rose said, pulling her cell out again. "Didn't know he had a cell."

"He had a Blackberry, one that's possibly from my future but still recognizable, when the Bailiff searched him," Alex said. "They let him keep that, but the sonic screwdriver has been confiscated until the case is resolved."

"Oh, tarnation!" Rose muttered. "Without that little thing - well, we'll be unable to break your friends out of jail, which is probably the point, or something like that."

"What's a blackberry?" Kyle asked.

"Kind of like a pager that collects email for you and beeps when a new one comes in," Alex told him. "They're planning to build the technology into cell phones, and those going to be popular, I can tell that without having to time travel."

"Alright, I'm going to try ringing back this number," Rose said, and held her phone to her ear. "Ringing - ringing - hullo, Doctor? Yes, it's me. I'm here in Kyle's room with him and Alex - how's the investigation going? Alright, need any more help? ... Got it, okay, we'll sit tight for the time being. Listen, Kyle and I, we - we picked up your package, but there's a bit of trouble. We'll need access to another compatible computer, fairly soon - I was expecting to use the TARDIS, but - yeah, it's been sealed off already. Okay, I'll see you then. Best hunting, or whatever." She hung up the phone, and sighed. "No, he doesn't want me coming along to help just yet, he'll meet us by this evening if not sooner, and he suggested just asking if we can get a mobile computer brought into the room."

"Hmm." Kyle considered that. "It might be programmed to spy on us and report by a no-wires network, or something like that."

"Yeah," Alex agreed thoughtfully. "Well, considering the computer situation, does it make sense to do anything with what you've got on the bracelets beyond just wiping it? That we can probably do, and even if they can tell that's what we're doing, it'll just frustrate whoever's monitoring."

"Unless it gets them curious enough to search in person," Kyle said. "Where they might find these papers - or use some alien data recovery tech on our bracelets. It's hard to erase something so thoroughly that it can't be recovered, right?"

"For Earth computer tech, yeah, possibly the same with this local stuff," Alex agreed. "Well, come on, let's start by looking over the hard copy. We don't need to worry about anything else until after we've done that."

"Except possibly getting some lunch," Rose pointed out.

"Hmm, yeah," Alex agreed. "I'm feeling pretty hungry too. Should I try calling for takeout again?"

"Yeah, give that a try," Kyle said. "So we don't have to leave the area."

So Alex went up and turned on the little communicator set into the wall of the room.


	8. Chapter 8

"Will the accused stand up?" the Bailiff asked. Sharing a look, Michael, Maria, and Isabel got to their feet in the small hearing room.

"Thank you." The hearing was being run by a young female Magistrate, whose demeanour so far reminded Maria more than a little bit of Judge Judy's. "Now, having heard the circumstances, I would like to once more urge the three of you to claim alien's privilege for us to contact your home planet and request their intervention on your behalf. By terms of the Shadow Proclamation, this option must be made available to travellers accused of a crime on foreign planets."

Michael blinked in surprise. "Uh, your honor, as we stated earlier, our home planet is not one that has formal diplomatic relations with any part of the Antarian sector or other nearby worlds, and far enough that any arrangements that you might make to send us there would be - be both costly, and take a very long time for us."

"Yes," the Magistrate said, "but once the process is begun, it does not necessarily have to be completed. Some things would be out of our hands."

"Your excellence, I protest," the Bailiff exclaimed. "I am very serious about this case, and..."

"I am not trying to be glib," the Magistrate said. "I am simply proceeding from the starting point that the alien's privilege is on the books, though we never expected to be applied to visitors from so far away, I realize. Last thing we want is the Shadow Proclamation coming down on us for violating Being's rights"

"But we'd need to identify our home planet, and its co-ordinates?" Isabel confirmed. The Magistrate slowly nodded. "Then I'm afraid we must decline that privilege."

"Very well." The magistrate tapped a button on her bench. "I hereby empower the Bailiff of Kaalto College Parish to hold the visitors Michael and Isabel in secure confinement, while conducting his investigation of the murder of Animon Soluz, for up to a period of twelve days. By that time, you'd better have some evidence to take to a Grand Panel, Bailiff."

"Yes, your excellence," the Bailiff muttered just as Maria was about to blurt out, 'what about me?'

"Based on the genetic analysis, and the reconstruction results that indicate she called, loudly, for medical assistance while the victim was still alive, I do not find sufficient reason to hold visitor Maria in confinement. She is to be released this hour, with the understanding that she is not to leave Kaalto township until the case is resolved or so authorized by this court. I believe that the - um, the vessel on which she arrived has already been sealed off, and orders regarding the other members of her party have already been given to Spacefield officials. Her name and likeness are to be added to that injunction. Is there anything else that any of the parties involved wish to bring to my attention?" There was a short moment of silence. "Then this court stands idle." She tapped a little knob on the bench, producing a dramatically deep sound effect, and rose to sweep out of the room.

Maria turned to Michael. "Hang in there, spaceboy," she said, hugging him as best she could with the wrist restraints they both wore.

"Hey!" one of the Bailiff's guards exclaimed.

"Take a chill pill, bud," Isabel muttered. "It's just a hug goodbye. I didn't get one with my guy, and if you want to pull my friends apart, you're going to have to go through me."

Maria wasn't entirely sure that it was 'just' a hug goodbye. Something strange seemed to seep from Michael's hands into her body as he held her, not something tangible, but - the wrist restraints were supposed to keep him and Isabel from using their powers. So what did that leave?

It didn't take all of the Magistrate's hour for Maria to be set free - she was escorted back to the holding facility where she'd shared a room with Isabel, and given back her credit bracelet and a few personal effects that had been confiscated. Just about the time that she was expecting that she'd be told she was free to go, who should walk through the door but the Doctor.

"Sorry, sorry, I meant to make it back in time for the hearing, but I got held up," he told her. "How are Michael and Isabel doing?"

"About as well as could be expected," she told him. "But I'm better off - the Magistrate set me free! More or less."

"Yes, I heard about that." The Doctor turned to the guardsman. "Free as in I can just walk off with her right this minute?"

"One more thing," the guard said, and had Maria face a little prism-shaped object on a four-legged stand. Maria knew what this thing was, and didn't object until it was over.

"This was for the 'do not sell passage to these people' sign that you'll send down to the space field?" Maria asked, and the jail guard nodded. "Why couldn't you use the image of me that you took when I was first taken into custody?"

"I dunno, procedure," he replied laconically. "Or that you look a little less 'captive' now, which should match the look you'll have if you're trying to escape the township."

Maria considered that a moment, and then walked on out of the security office suite, the Doctor right behind her. "Okay, so where's the rest of the gang?" she asked. "Alex, Kyle, and Rose are all okay, right?"

"Yeah, they're hanging out back at Kyle's room, last I heard," the Doctor told her. "If it's okay, though, I hadn't planned to take you to meet them right now."

"Um - why not?"

"Because I still need to solve the case, and I think you're the best one to help me out with a little detective work."

Maria stopped short so suddenly that she had to windmill her arms a little to keep from falling over, and then reached out and grabbed the Doctor's arm, which helped steady her. "Why me? I mean, I've done a little investigative work, but - but only with Michael."

"That's good," he said. "I'm not sure why I picked you, but that doesn't mean I'm about to reconsider. Will you consider assisting me in order to get your regular partner his freedom?"

Maria took a short breath. "Of course, I'd do anything for Michael - and I think I trust you that this is the best way to help him. So where do we go from here?"

"Probably first, find a little coffee shop or some equivalent venue, so I can catch you up on what I've found out so far," he suggested. "Sound good?"

"Yeah, definitely. They gave us some food in the clink, but I couldn't make myself swallow much of it." Maria sighed, as the Doctor led the way off.

#

"Ah _ha_!" Kyle exclaimed as he shuffled his share of the pages around. "I have a Tess - well, not sighting perhaps, since it's not a picture. A Tess description, maybe?"

"It can be a Tess sighting by proxy, if it's describing the experience of someone who's seen her," Alex pointed out. "But I guess that's not so important. What does it describe?"

"Let's see - I'm not sure of the details of the Antarian calendar, but an Earthling hybrid girl claiming that she was Queen Ava of Antar reborn... appeared on the Antarian moon Nunyes and established herself as overlady of that world, to the acclamation of many of the populace," Kyle read. "This was seen as a revolutionary shift in the politics of the entire sector, especially since she has maintained her control over the Granilith and threatens to use it as a weapon against Kivar, or anyone else who might stand against her."

"Whoa," Alex breathed. "I sort of expected her to throw in with Kivar or the Liarets, or maybe seek sanctuary from Larek or one of the other major planets."

"Come on," Kyle said. "I know you've mentioned the idea that she was really working for Kivar the whole time, and I don't believe her. I know Tess Harding, and..."

"Do you really?" Alex sighed. "Until the day she took off, had you even caught a glimpse of the girl who twisted my own mind into a prison to hold me captive in Las Cruces, working myself in the ground to get the information she needed? Or who bound me with those same chains to never do or say anything to let my friends suspect what had happened?"

Rose cocked her head, the edges of her mouth turning down prominently. "She did that? Wouldn't - wouldn't it have been easier just to wipe your mind, give you a false memory of being to Norway or whatever?"

"Sweden," Kyle put in.

"Whatever," Alex agreed. "Maybe Tess didn't have that kind of power over the memory sector of the brain, or maybe she just didn't want me to forget. I'm not sure which."

"Still - to know about that kind of thing, and be trapped inside the life of a person who refuses to speak of it - how horrible," Rose said.

"It wasn't fun," Alex agreed, and Rose realized that he'd rather she drop it now instead of belaboring the subject. "So Tess took over one of the Antarian moons, huh? Guess that's where we'll have to go to find her - after we settle the murder case, get back into the TARDIS - and take that little trip back into Antar's past. Any idea what Tess is planning?"

"Like running a moon wouldn't be enough for this girl?" Rose asked.

"Hmm - not really clear," Kyle said, returning to the sheet. "Apparently delegates from most of the major powers have come to negotiate with her - but it's not really clear what the negotiations were about. Most of the infighting between the six factions who were at the Summit has been put on hold while everyone waits to see what happens next with the Granilith - maybe that's what she had in mind - trying to stall long enough for a new ceasefire to take hold."

"You still have more faith in her good intentions than I do," Alex said and sighed. "Okay, what about the stuff about the past?"

"Oh, you mean Antar's past?" Kyle shuffled the papers he was holding, and shrugged. "None of that here, I think. Go fish." Rose giggled as Alex collected several of the pages that were piled slapdash on the floor between them. Then there was a soft chime at the door.

"That's got to be either the Doctor or dinner delivery," Rose declared enthusiastically, rising to her feet and going to check the results of her guess. Yes for dinner, no for doctor, Kyle decided, looking up after a moment and seeing her collect several fairly light containers from a tall Kaaltan man. She brought them back, and placed one package in front of each of them on the floor. They were the kind of segmented synthetic, disposable dinner plate that Kyle was familiar with eating frozen dinners out of - or maybe, with the fitted and poppable lids, more like the takeout containers for barbecue chicken.

"Smells good," Alex said, looking up from the papers to lift the lid from his own dish. There was a geometic construction in one segment of the plate that seemed to be made out of folded plastic - Alex tore off a tiny bit near the top and put it to his lips, tiping the container. "Allaris, I think they called this - it's good, did you have any at the ball?" he asked them.

"Yeah, but in glasses, not whatever one of those are," Rose said.

"Ehh, to each planet their own," Kyle pointed out. "On Earth, we have milk cartons and juice boxes. Just how do you open it properly, though, Whitman? I'd hate to spill on the floor - or myself."

Alex picked up Kyle's container and indicated the key segment and the direction in which to pull it,.then handed it back to let him try. As Kyle and Rose slaked their thirst, Alex considered another section of his tray, which gave off a meaty aroma and seemed to indeed be a dressed and cooked creature, or part of a creature, as opposed to food that had been processed into shapelessness. Experimentally, he prodded the surface of it a bit.

"Really hard," he narrated out loud for the benefit of his friends. "Hard enough skin that I wouldn't want to have to chew or cut through it - hmm." By getting his fingers underneath a key joint, he was able to pry up a sizable section of the shell. "Kinda like lobster, maybe, not really as tough to get into." He dug into the vulnerable spot that had been prepared with his bare fngers, tore loose a strip of orange substance, and popped it immediately into his mouth. "Delicious," he mumbled, the look on his face showing a delight to match that word - and then suddenly falling somewhat. "Eww. Another something hard, inside."

"Like a bone?" Rose said, and then twigged. "Wait a second, if it's got a shell - a lobster's shell is an exoskeleton, right?"

"Yeah," Kyle agreed. "But these critters may have found that just one skeleton, inside or outside, wasn't enough. They had to have both."

"Yeah," Alex agreed reluctantly, trying to delicately spit the bones out without dribbling decent meat. "Evolution never took that tack on Earth, as far as I know, but that's not really saying anything about what's possible and what isn't."

With that warning, Rose and Alex were able to dig into their own main courses to some satisfaction. The 'meat' didn't take like chicken, though Rose was almost expecting it to, or shellfish for that matter. It was spicy and savory though - the closest things that she could think of to compare it to were Atlantic cod and lamb, but neither was that good a resemblance. Another section if the plate was filled with a pile of firm cubes an inch or more on a side. Picking up, Rose thought it felt like a chip, but the taste was more like cheese cannelloni with barbecue sauce on it. And there was a mess of shapeless jelly that shaded from blue through green to yellow. Alex tried picking some of that up with his bare fingers, but it slipped away from him.

"You go," Rose told Kyle, as he withdrew a small spoon from under his 'plate' and shot her an inquiring look. "I'll be right over here - ready to come to the rescue if it suddenly attacks you."

"Oh, how reassuring, but I don't think that I'm really in danger," Kyle said. "Looks just like my Dad's lime jello."

"With that color scheme?" Rose asked, uncertain if he really meant that or not.

Kyle didn't answer, but took a spoonful in his mouth - and made a slightly unhappy face again.

"Ooh, how bad is it?" Alex said, offering one of the pages to Kyle as if he would use it to spit u into. Kyle made a point out of swallowing.

"Not - not that bad," he told them. "I guess I was expecting it to be sweet, like jell-o, and it's definitely not. The flavor is definitely in the vegetable-ey family, but it's not any less pleasant than a serving of carrots or butternut squash."

"Hmm." Rose took out her own spoon and poked the jelly, still uncertain.

"You'd better eat up," Alex said, digging in himself. "Keep yourself healthy and strong for whatever happens next."

Soon enough, the dinner was done, and all the dishes sent back down the recycler-disposal chute in the room. By this time, Alex had found the printout pages with information about the time of the rise of Kivar and the fall of the house of Sanren, and they were talking about how well the Doctor would be able to determine co-ordinates from them... always assuming that they were allowed entry back into the TARDIS.

"It looks to me like there are two main possibilities," Alex said. "One is the Royal Court itself, and though we've got a lot of information about that, it's not really all that detailed, when you consider that we're talking about a big castle surrounded by an even bigger city - lots of little details that might get left out. I think that we might be better off to go with this seaside holiday thing: the descriptions are incredibly vivid, really, and in a small setting like that, there are fewer unaccounted for variables."

"Hmm, I dunno," Kyle said pensively, and scratched on his forearm for a moment. "It's weird, but I feel like I'm not quite full. It was a good dinner, as far as it went, but..."

"But no pudding," Rose blurted out, and the boys shot her a look. "Dessert, I guess I should say, for you lot."

"I actually did know what you meant," Alex put in. "And I guess I can see your point, but actually after a dinner like that, I'm inclined to leave well enough alone, instead of trying to find something nice for sweets. It'd be different if we weren't on a planet full of alien cuisine, I suppose."

Rose nodded, but her face was disappointed, and even if he didn't mean it, Kyle would have been inclined to say what he did next. "Well, I'm feeling lucky and a bit advenurous. How about we go look for the nearest community dining hall? You said that there should be one around somewhere, right Alex?"

"Umm - actually, yeah, turns out Isabel went there for a midnight snack, which is part of why she was late to breakfast," Alex said absently. "But even if the colony authorities are still happy delivering our dinner with no charges, I think you're not going to be able to get anything down at the dining hall without using your bracelet. Umm, unless you leave them behind and then meet a really friendly native who takes pity and charity on the strangers."

"Hmm, that could work," Rose pointed out.

"No, come on," Kyle complained. "I've got a bit too much pride to go out begging for charity, yet. Why don't we just swap bracelets, Alex?" Alex looked up and clearly hesitated. "Aww, I know that they're supposed to be personal, but really, who's going to know the difference between us? Is now a good time to be a stickler for the rules?"

"Well, I'll go through with it if you want," Alex said quietly. "But considering that some of our company have already been thrown into jail for a crime that they _didn't_ commit, I'd put forward that now is actually a very good time to stick by the rules. You might not have noticed, but I think that they scanned some biometric data from us before issuing the bracelets - height and weight, face shape, and so on. Might have even got retinal and finger prints."

"Oh," Rose said, getting the point. "You mean, they might scan his bio-metrics again when he uses the bracelet, and if the results don't match what was put on the chip..."

"F- flippin' hell," Kyle muttered. Rose raised an eyebrow, as if bemused that he censored himself in front of her. "We shoulda gotten the wheels rolling on the laptop computer thing hours ago, to deal with these wretched data bombs we've got on our wrists..."

"Come on, sweetie," Rose said, smiling at Kyle in an effort to cheer him up. "We can just - umm..." She trailed off without being sure how to finish that sentence in a reassuring way.

And in the silence, they heard a very faint door signal - not in Kyle's room, which was where the three of them had gathered, but somewhere nearby - and also a faint shuffle out in the hallway. Kyle got to the door first, and found another delivery person waiting at Alex's door. "Oh, hey man, umm..."

"Excuse me?" the Kaaltan courier said with a very snooty 'this isn't any of your business' attitude that shut Kyle up for a long moment.

However, Alex was curious enough to get up and see what was going on, explain that the door that the guy was waiting at was his own, and open it from the outside using his thumbprint to prove it. "Ah, very good, sir. Loaner equipment from the Colony governorship - by taking it, you are accepting responsibility and _will_ need to make restitution if there is any damage, no matter what your financial circumstances or the influence of your Patron, please indicate your acceptance for the voiceprint record."

"I understand and accept those terms," Alex recited, wondering slightly how the TARDIS translation field affected things like those recordings - would the electronic voiceprint device capture words in Antarian, with the true characteristics of his own voice?

"Very good," the delivery guy said, bored and lofty at the same time, and handed over the package. He was already making good time down the corridor, (in the direction that it wasn't blocked by the gate over the TARDIS door,) when Alex closed the doors.

"Is that what I think it is?" Rose asked him.

"Probably," Alex said. "I did put the requisition in for a portable computer device capable of interacting with other computer circuits, but didn't plan on such a co-incidental arrival, obviously." He opened up the package, finding something that was definitely much smaller than most laptop computers, but bigger than a palmpilot - and just slightly bigger than a shoe, though the shape was different. "Figuring out how to work it, though, may take some time - and sorting out what sectors on your bracelet are forbidden data and what information is supposed to be there. You might have to wait a while for your dessert."

"Unless we try the obvious solution," Rose pointed out with a charming smile. "Alex, would you mind terribly coming with us to the dining hall? You don't have to get anything if you don't feel like it, but you can sit with us and we can all talk..."

"And I can put your orders on my bracelet," Alex said with a big smile. "Makes sense, under the circumstances - and doesn't it figure that neither of us thought of something so simple, huh Kyle?" Kyle looked as if this solution was hardly better than no dessert at all in his opinion, but Alex could hardly back out when Rose had invited him - well, not right away. If there was a good moment, he'd go back to the room early and leave the two of them to stay, or take the scenic route, or whatever else they chose.

It didn't take long to find the dining hall, even though Isabel hadn't really given complete directions to Alex, and it seemed to be very busy, full of Kaaltans at what was apparently a regular dinner hour. They could see a lot of families with small children as well as singles, pairs, and larger groups of adults of all ages. Once again, Alex was seized with an unexpected 'wonder' as the three of them waited in a queue for the food dispensers, musing on how much of the population of Kaalto township ate regularly at a public diner like this, for each of their meals. Would a majority of family groups have a food preparation area in their quarters, or had such 'personal kitchens' been deemed an inefficient use of community resources and discouraged, except for possibly a few of the rich who could afford them anyway?

"Okay, there's still a lot of - of people waiting behind us," Kyle pointed out as they drew slowly closer to their destination. "It would seem to be very - antisocial to take a long time to decide on what we want. How do we get an at-least-passable dessert as quickly as possible?"

"Hmm - I wonder if the food dispenser units have a genie mode?" Alex asked. Rose glared at him. "Okay, maybe it's better not to try that. In any event, I've had some practice this morning working with their computer systems around here - but I guess you did too, finding the genie results."

"If you want to order for me, go right ahead," Rose suggested, looking over at Kyle to see if he would agree to that too.

"Hmm - yeah, you go first - I think I'll try for myself, especially since I can go to a second station," he suggested.

"No, you can't," Rose reminded him. "Or at least, it might be awkward. It has to be on Alex's bracelet, remember."

"Oh, right." Kyle sighed. "Whatever - but don't order me the same thing as Rose. If we get two - then at least we could maybe share if one of them sucks - or switch if we don't agree on what sucks."

"Alright!" Rose exclaimed, nearly clapping in her excitement. "Are you sure you don't want to make it three puddings, Alex?"

"Umm - maybe I'll wait to decide until I see how well the search is going," he hedged. "And it looks like we're up. Let's go." Sure enough, one of the wall stations had come free, and the three of them were now at the front of the line. He headed over, found a dessert-ish category fairly quickly, and narrowed in on a subcategory that actually seemed like what Americans would call 'pudding', cued in by Rose's choice of words.

Feeling reasonably optimistic, he finalized the order for three items and swiped his bracelet to pay for them - two dishes that had exactly the same description except for the flavoring of 'roast mendono seed' versus 'wolee stalk', and a slightly different item in the same category, that sounded to Alex like an apple-infused rice pudding. Kyle took dibs on that one as it emerged from the dispenser, and offered Rose next choice. She took the roast seed dish, and then asked Alex if he was okay with what was left, and he assured her he was. After tasting it, and finding that wolee stalk appeared to taste like a blend between cherries and pears, he was indeed well satisfied.

In fact, the dessert dish was so tasty that Alex found himself eating quickly, as Kyle and Rose dawdled over their dishes and chatted. Seeing that this was his opportunity to leave them alone, he hurried through the food even more, and excused himself to go back. Rose seemed surprised, but Kyle just smiled and wished him a good evening, which Alex was happy to offer back again. After throwing the dishes in a public disposal-recycler, he hurried out of the dining hall, concentrating on the way back to their rooms.

As he climbed up the steep ramp that connected two different levels of the underground city, Alex suddenly felt dizzy, and at first he ascribed the sensation to the unfamiliar task. When he actually realized that something was seriously wrong, he tried to call for help, but couldn't seem to make his voice work, it was closing in on him. But when he lost consciousness and tumbled back down to the base of the incline, it was only seconds before friendly natives called for the emergency services.

#

As they rode in a monorail car back towards Colony admin, the Doctor suddenly started and cocked his head as if there had been a piercing shriek so high that only Gallifreyans could hear it. Maria looked at him nervously as he patted all the pockets of his suit, finally fished out his pad of psychic paper, looked at it, and frowned.

"What is it?" she asked.

"Your - our friend Alex," the Doctor muttered. "Something's happened to him, not an act of violence or anything immediately life-threatening, but he needs help."

"How can you tell?" Maria asked.

"Something I thought I'd try since there'd be a whole clan underfoot on this jaunt - I established a low-level psychic link with each of you. Even with the paper to guide my thoughts, I can't get much detail, but..."

"Can you tell where he is?" Maria asked.

"Not certainly, but we should be heading in the right direction. I told him to go back to base camp and not stray far."

Somehow Maria wasn't too reassured at that.

#

Isabel sighed as the guard stomped over to her cell in the detention area. She'd been somewhat worried that they'd get moved over into a more serious prison area, but from what she'd been able to tell from overheard comments, the Kaaltan legal custom was much like the American in this respect - the holding cell or jail area for those who were simply arrested on suspicion of a crime was relatively safe and benign - even the fact that she and Michael had been arraigned and denied bail didn't change their status in this respect. If they were actually convicted of a crime and sentenced, then that would result in a transfer to a much rougher prison facility, according to the details of the sentence and what crime the prosector got a conviction for.

"Is it dinner-time yet, Maral?" she asked the guard without looking up. He was the only one big enough to leave such a tread. Earlier in the day, Isabel had been somewhat hyper and talked to the guards about their lives for as long as they'd been willing to put up with her.

"In a little while, Izzy-bell," he replied. "Figured that I'd let you get settled with your new cellmate first."

"Uhh?" Worried, Isabel looked up. Was someone else that she knew about to get tossed in with her? No, that hardly seemed likely. So she'd have to share this tiny little space with a Kaaltan native, (or some other type of alien?) who was under suspicion of violating Kaaltan laws, probably in the college campus or nearby. Again, a number of scenes from movies about rough county jails and similar venues ran through her head.

When her eyes finally focused, though, the person standing next to tall and bulky Maral was clearly a young girl, in her teens as far as Isabel could tell, (which presumed that Antarian development paralleled an Earthling's,) and undeniably short - even shorter than Liz or Tess. Maybe she would measure five foot one, or possibly only five feet even. And there was something in the girl's face that did remind Isabel of Liz Parker - not the more confident and mature young woman that Liz had grown into while Isabel had known her, but the fresh-faced and naive waitress whose life Max had saved.

"Her? What are you bringing her in for?" Isabel asked.

"Stay back from the cell doorway," Maral grunted unresponsively, so Isabel looked to make sure that she was well back from the entryway an then firmly sat where she was.

The new girl grinned slightly. "They got me for a political protest," she declared. "Hi, I'm Beyla - nice to meet you Izziebell."

"It's pronounced Isabel," Isabel clarified, stressing the flat 'a' just slightly. "Good for you, I guess, any planet needs people to stand up for their beliefs." Though Isabel had never really thought about doing such a thing back home on Earth herself - but she had bigger concerns, she supposed. "So what hot button issue are you involved in a cause for?"

"Pretty much the whole colony puppet government thing," Beyla raged as she she urged inside and Maral closed the door again. "So what if historically, this piece of rock happened to be settled by a ship that came from Rahlicx? That doesn't give them the right to decide what goes on around here in perpetuity. The time has come for Kaaltan self-determination."

"Hmm." Maral stepped away at this point, and Isabel realized that the cell across from hers was now empty. "Wait a second, Maral - what happened to Michael?"

"He's still safe in custody," Maral grunted. "We moved him to another unit two hours ago. Thought you'd have noticed before this. The Bailiff agreed that we'd probably have more peace this way."

Isabel wondered very much if the other 'unit' was just another block of cells in this security complex, or another location far across the underground township. She didn't ask it out loud, though. "Okay. So - if the Kaaltan grass roots were running the show instead of Larek's tapped governor, what would you do differently?"

"Hmm?" Beyla said, sounding strange. "What do the roots of leafy green plants have to do with it?"

Whoops - that idiom had slipped through the TARDIS translation effect it seemed. "Sorry - a movement formed from the ordinary people with no particular government experience."

"Oh, right. Well, for one thing, we'd take the smart road when it comes to protecting ourselves when it comes to the whole war situation."

"War?" Isabel said, getting a bad feeling. "Do you mean, with Kivar and the Liaretians and the Breoll and all of those other people?"

"Well, is there another war in this sector that I haven't heard about? It's easy for Larek to denounce Kivar Andraikus as a tyrant usurper and say that he won't rest until Antar is free of him, but he keeps his fleets close to his own home planet, and there's precious nobody out around here to stand guard in case Kivar wants to take one of Larek's little colonies away from him, as the easiest way to punish him for his impertinence. If Kaalto were independent, we could sign a decent deal with Kivar and his Breoll allies - nobody really likes them, but they've got the biggest fleets, and on a practical level you eventually come to a choice between respecting that or getting pounded into molecular dust by an orbital bombardment..."

Isabel sighed and started to tune the details of the girl's rant out at this point. Try as she might, though, the larger issues posed by Beyla's point of view weren't nearly as easy to ignore. From the point of view of Isabel and her friends, it was a good thing that Larek, and the colony worlds that stood behind him, were resisting Kivar as vehemently as they could. Whether this was fair to the inhabitants of the small colonies who couldn't be afforded protections that would stand up to Kivar's fleet - that was a tougher question. On the other hand, if Kivar's dominion really was evil, then for smaller planets to cut deals with him just because they were afraid - was it unfair to compare people like that with countries who had tolerated the Nazi Reich, way back when?

And she'd feel better if she knew where Michael was, and had more news of how things were going with Alex - and Maria, and the Doctor and Rose, even Kyle.

#

Alex woke up, and was immediately conscious of an odd sensation, that of not remembering how and when he had fallen asleep, like that time at camp when he'd participated in the wake-a-thon, and refused to admit that he'd nodded off at the monopoly table. "What - what happened?" he muttered. The last thing he remembered was - there had been the public kitchen, and leaving by himself to give Kyle some time to spend alone with Rose, and...

"You found out the hard way that Wolee stalk is very bad for your cellular metabolism," someone told him. Alex squinted and saw the Doctor smiling down on his bed - and Maria, Kyle, and Rose were all there too. "Interferes with oxygen usage inside the cell, I figure - kind of like cyanide, but works more slowly - which is probably good for you, or the medial response team wouldn't have been able to help you in time - though if you'd collapsed in the public kitchen there might have been somebody there who'd figure out what to do in time. As it is, you're still an undeservedly lucky and somewhat foolish young man."

"Well, we're on a strange planet, trying to manage as best we can," Alex pointed out. "It's not like there's a feature on the kitchen computers that will flash if something's poisonous to us - especially when we can't come right out and tell them where we're from."

"Ssh," Rose went, nodding at him seriously.

"Yeah, yeah, I know." Alex groaned. "The lights are so bright. Is this a public health facility of some sort?"

"Yes," Kyle told him. "They called Rose and me when we were leaving the kitchen ourselves, somehow they found out that we had come in together. And the Doctor seemed to know you were in trouble already."

"Will I have to stay here for observation all night or something?" Alex asked.

"I don't think so, but - well, here's the Healer now," Maria told him, as a Kaaltan stepped up to join them. After the Healer monitored Alex's reaction to an even brighter light shone straight into his eyes, touched his skin, measured his pulse, and asked permission to connect to his bodily systems momentarily for a quick check, he declared the patient fit to go home as soon as he felt ready.

"Still feeling a little dizzy, to be honest," Alex admitted, relaxing back onto the bed.

"Do you need something to eat?" Maria asked. "Something safe, I mean?"

"No, I feel alright as far as food goes," Alex assured her. "We had a great dinner."

"Yes, but yours got mixed with the Wolee contamination while it was sitting around and waiting to be digested," the Doctor pointed out.

"Yeah, they force-emptied your stomach with alien powers," Kyle reported, a bit too gleefully. "It was so gross." Rose looked a bit sick and brought the heel of her shoe back into the side of Kyle's foot.

"Okay, well, umm - I don't think that I'm blood-sugar-crashing yet, but no sense in asking for that to happen on top of everything else," Alex decided. "Anything safe to eat and not that much effort to chew, I'm good for. Any word from Isabel?"

There was a slightly awkward silence after that. "I'll ask the nurse for something good," Rose said, stepping away.

"No updates since I left Michael and Isabel, after the - the arraignment, I guess," Maria said, her face scrunching up slightly. "We should go see if we can visit them - umm, maybe I could make it tonight, but..."

"They'll be okay until morning, I think," the Doctor said in a wise grownup tone of voice. "There's been enough rushing here and there, back and forth today, and we've nearly gotten ourselves tied in circles because of it." He looked around to check on if any of the clinic staff were near to their little cluster. "Speaking of which, young Mister Valenti..."

"We got the info," Kyle said, his voice as low as the Doctor's whisper had become. "Hard copy, and digital - on the only compatible electronic media we happened to be carrying at the time." He lifted his ID bracelet just slightly, with a significant look down at it, and then nodded slightly towards Rose.

The Doctor was by no means slow to catch Kyle's meaning. "Oh, I see. Have you had to use your IDs for their more traditional purpose since?"

"No, but that's been awkward," Kyle admitted. "Rose commissioned an outfit on the concourse today, and we couldn't go back to collect it - the tailors put a hold on her credit but didn't actually take it out. And - and we dragged Alex out with us to go for a snack after the dinner that was delivered... which is why he..."

"You didn't force me to have any myself," Alex pointed out.

"And if you hadn't," Rose told him as she came near, "one of us might have picked Wolee stalk. Bygones. Try this." She handed him a tall and skinny cylinder.

"Uh, okay." Alex accepted the flutelike object, pondered how to consume the contents, then put his entire mouth around the opening, then tipped it up to be nearly horizontal. After swallowing a small amount, he returned the tube back to a nearly vertical orientation, pulling it back away from his mouth. "Not bad. Do I want to know what it's made from?"

"Maybe - I didn't ask myself," Rose admitted. "Just that it was guaranteed to be nutritious and compatible with everything that they could figure out about your metabolism. What does it taste like?"

"Hmm." Alex peered at the contents of the tube. It was now clear that the container was mostly transparent, though it had a slight scattering effect, and inside was a pale blue liquid. "Something vaguely fruity, though I couldn't really identify the fruit." He considered, and took another sip. "Has an aftertaste sort of like chocolate milk, too."

"Sounds good," Maria pointed out. "Can I get one of my own, or are they only for patients?"

"What, didn't you have anything to eat while you were running around with the Doctor?" Kyle asked her.

"Well, yeah, we stopped for a bite after I got out of the clink, but that must have been a while ago," she pointed out.

"I'm sure that we can arrange something," the Doctor told her. "Alex, as soon as you're feeling a little steadier, we should probably be going. The staff are being very nice, but hospitals are always short of beds, across the galaxy as far as I know. Is there anything else that we absolutely need to take care of before turning in for the night? It's been a long and rough day for everybody." Hie glance flicked to Rose and Kyle's wrists, as if to reassure them that he hadn't forgotten about their ID issue.

"Rose, you've still got your super-phone, right?" Maria said. "We need to call Max and Liz again - no matter what time it is back home. They need to know what's going on with Michael and Isabel."

"Even if it's already after we picked them up, back home?" Alex asked with a little smile, as he sat up and swung his legs down off the edge of the bed. "I assume that's possible, based on the way the TARDIS works."

"Well, we'll give them a call and see if anybody picks up," the Doctor told Maria as she frowned at this possibility. "Anything else?"

As Alex got himself ready to go, Rose went over to the clinic dispenser and punched for another thin tube of blue milk. Nobody objected as she collected it and brought it over to Maria.


	9. Chapter 9

Michael woke up with a fairly familiar sense of confusion, and then blinked through it to realize that something was actually going seriously wrong. He was - he tried to shake his head and think more - he was tied to some kind of frakking examination table. "What the heck is going on?"

For a moment, there was no reply. Then a silky and slick voice that made Michael's skin crawl came from out of the shadows. "Don't worry, Michael. It'll only take a few more minutes, and then you can go. Back to the jail, at first, I'm afraid, but if I get all that I'm interested in from this procedure, my employers will do what they can to drop the murder charges and secure you your freedom."

Uh-oh. As promising as the words seemed, Michael could tell that none of this was good news. Why not? He had to fight to think - something was clouding his thoughts, He needed to understand what the problem was, or he couldn't fight what was coming - if he could even figure out a way to fight with his limbs all secured in metal, and his powers... experimentally Michael tried to shoot a small burst of energy off in the direction that the crawly voice had come from, and - nothing. Of course a Kaaltan would have been able to take some kind of precautions, before kidnapping anybody who had an Antarian's powers.

If he'd been on Earth, if this was a dark and gloomy version of the White room, then he'd be worried about his slick captor finding out that he really was an alien. Obviously that wasn't likely to be the problem here on an alien planet, but - oh, of course! It was the other way around, here. They needed to hide the fact that they were half human, Antarian hybrids, because somebody might think of the Royal Four based on that clue. And it would be possible for a Kaaltan to figure that out based on a blood sample, or other DNA...

Okay, so that was the objective Michael had to work toward, or rather against - keep Silky from analyzing any samples - that he already had an opportunity to take when Michael was helpless. While he was restrained and helpless. That didn't sound hard at all.

"But if you don't have any other weapons at all, you can still bluff," he whispered under his breath. "Hey, buddy - you'd better let me out of here right now, if you know what's good for you! You're not going to be able to keep me here long enough to get what you need, anyway."

"And what makes you say that?" Silky stepped out partway into the light, and Michael struggled to hide a grimace at the ferociously cragged visage of an alien noticeably less humanoid than the Antarian-bred Kaaltans - maybe a Klenthorr, Michael had heard that there were several thousand of that other species in the Kaalto colony, and wasn't sure if he'd seen one before. "You're at my mercy, with no friends nearby, and nobody even knows that you've been borrowed from the jail complex."

"That's all that you know," Michael insisted, the balderdash coming quickly now that he was counting on it. "You've heard about our friend and protector, the Time Lord, right? Trust me, you don't want to make him angry, and he's keeping an eye on what's going on with all of us. He doesn't need to be watching the jail in obvious ways - he just thinks about us, and he knows how we're feeling and what we're worried about. Since I woke up, I've been pumping out enough nervous brainwaves to show up as a red alert to him, and so the only way you could possibly keep from getting your ass kicked is to dump me back where I'm supposed to be, toot sweet."

"You're bluffing," the Klenthorr scientist muttered, sounding uncertain.

"Maybe I am," Michael admitted. "I'm good at it. But I've also been telling you the truth, at least part of the time. What it really comes down to is - how big a pair of rocks do you have, buddy?"

"Alright, come on," he finally said, stepping over to the table and starting to push it out of the room, while still leaving Michael restrained upon it.

This wouldn't do, Michael realized instantly. "No, wait. Let me go."

The ferocious creature hesitated for just a moment before bowing to the mighty name of a Time Lord and unfastening the restraint. As he found a small tube, something a bit like an IV drip, that led into the skin on his wrist and pulled it out, Michael almost immediately felt his powers return. Good, that would make this next part easier.

Summoning a light first, Michael examined the alien laboratory surrounding him and tried to estimate how many different containers or machines might already contain a sample of his blood or other bodily substances. Since he wasn't sure what he was looking at, the list grew very quickly, but that couldn't be helped.

When Michael started the energy discharges, he didn't stop until everything on the list was glowing red hot and in ruins, or something like that.

When he turned and stared at the Klenthorr, the alien scientist made a sound like a doorbell sounding faintly a few times in the distance. "I... I don't care what you tell me, I am _not_ taking you back to jail. You can try to find your own way, or - or go wherever the hell you want. I'm out of here." And he ducked around a smoking object that had once looked like a seven foot tall microscope and disappeared, leaving Michael to ponder what he actually did want to do next.

#

"Are you sure that you'll be okay in that Spartan little room by yourself, Alex?" Maria asked solicitously, as the five of them trudged up the corridor.

"Umm, I think I'll be fine, I'm really feeling much better now, why?" Alex looked back over at Maria and was surprised to see her drop her gaze to the floor instead of making eye contact. "What, were you thinking of inviting me to room with you, until our respective sweeties get back from the slammer? I'm not sure I really want to sign up to be your substitute Spaceboy."

"Well, I didn't mean it like _that_, obviously," Maria insisted. "But - well, yeah, I think that we could both use some company for the night. Especially since you've just had alien food poisoning and all."

"Come on, anybody would think that you weren't used to sleeping all on your own, little Maria," Kyle teased her.

"Oh, yeah, that's it," she bit back sarcastically. "The fact that we're on an alien planet many light-years from home has nothing to do with my desire for a little companionship and having a friend close by."

"Hey, alright, you've sold me," Alex admitted. "I'd be happy to move into your room for the night. The bed looked like it was big enough that we wouldn't need to be all cuddled up together or anything - because _that_ would be awkward."

"You know, that gives me an idea," Rose mentioned. "I know that somebody said something about getting other rooms for you and I, doctor, now that we can't easily bunk down inside the TARDIS, but if the requisition actually did go through, then I'm pretty sure that nobody showed any of us where we're supposed to be, and I'm desperately weary at the thought of trying to find out anything from the Colonial bureaucracy, especially since I figure that nearly everybody has gone home..."

"It's not really that late by Kaalto time, I think," Kyle told her. "Their days are a bit longer than us, or I mean Earth's, I mean, so none of us have really adjusted to the time difference - as it were."

"Yes, but still, she does have a point," the Doctor admitted. "Are you suggesting that we can take Alex and Isabel's room - if Alex doesn't mind?"

"It occured to me," she admitted, and shot a look over at Alex. Alex, for his own part, was also uncomfortably aware of Kyle's frustrated stare, but couldn't figure out what kind of an objection he was supposed to raise to stop this without looking like an inconsiderate buffoon.

"Umm - it's fine with me. I guess I couldn't really say that Isabel wouldn't have a problem with it, but that - that's up to you guys to decide in the end I suppose," he managed to say lamely.

"Hmm - well, can anyone work out what the situation was with our accomodation more closely?" the Doctor said, looking around to the others.

"Just a moment, let me try to think, it's been a long day," Rose grumbled, reaching up to rub her fingers on her temples. Maria shot Kyle a look, and he took the hint, stepping behind Rose to rub her shoulders in a friendly way as she stood and thought. The Doctor raised an eyebrow at this behaviour from the humans, but didn't comment out loud. "We came back from the township admin station, Kyle and I, after retrieving the info from the college computers and going back via the concourse. Found workmen, setting up the fence around the TARDIS doors, and I asked about where you and I were going to sleep. He said that - that alternate facilities would be provided for us, but that they weren't ready yet, and that." She smiled slightly, nodding at Alex. "That 'the kid' had already been making a fuss on our behalf."

"Oh, was that me?" Alex asked in a slightly vague way. "Don't really remember it so clearly myself.

"Okay, then that settles it, we'll take your room," Rose declared. Kyle tried to stifle a groan. "Anything else that we need to work out before everybody turns in?"

Kyle looked up and down the corridor as if trying to find something, and everybody else shrugged. Maria led Alex into her room by the hand, keeping up a running patter line, and Rose turned to the other door - and called back after Maria and Alex. "Umm, you do have to let us in, I think, and maybe get anything that you'll need, friend."

"Oh, uh, right," Alex said, with a laugh, as he hurried back out. He was confused enough that he tried to swipe his wristband on the door to open it, before the Doctor reminded him that they were keyed to thumbprints.

"Wristbands!" Kyle pointed out, waving his meaningfully at the Doctor.

"Oh, right, yes," he agreed. "Should deal with that now, before any other complications arise - or arrive." He held the door open after Alex got the lock mechanism disengaged, and waved both Rose and Kyle inside. Alex did come just to take a quick poke at his luggage, and opened up both his case and Isabel's thoughtfully 'so that you (Rose and the Doctor) can grab anything you need that we happen to have.'

"Will you need the Kaaltan laptop that they lent us?" Kyle asked the Doctor before he entered. After receiving a considered nod, he disappeared briefly into his room to fetch the hardware, and soon the Doctor was proceeding through a boot sequence and exploring available functions.

Rose, meanwhile, couldn't seem to resist the temptation to poke through Isabel's baggage, under the pretext of figuring out what she'd need to get ready to turn in for the night. She whistled in amazement and drew out a short, see-through, and pink nightgown with thin shoulder straps, and modeled it for a few seconds by holding it in front of her still-clothed figure. Kyle's eyes bugged out a little, more at the concept than what he was actually seeing, while the Doctor, once again, just raised an eyebrow before going back to what he was doing.

"Okay, I think that I've got a short-range memory access module online, that should be just the thing to rewrite your bracelets," he announced after a minute or so more work. "What do we think, do we actually need to copy the files to this laptop, or just purge them?"

"Umm - we've got a lot accomplished with the plastic-paper printouts already," Kyle pointed out after a moment of thought. "Keeping files on the laptop is just pushing out the problem, as I understand it - we'll need to move or delete them before we give the computer back to the Kaaltans, and where do we move them to next? Buy a pocket chip that we can't access directly, ourselves?"

"Good point," the Doctor allowed. "Rose, any thoughts?"

"I understand where you're concerned, Kyle, but let's not jump too hastily," she decided. "Buying a pocket chip in the concourse shouldn't be hard, once we can use our bracelets again. And, well, it would be a useful backup - _if_ we'll be able to access it after we leave Kaalto. Like, in the TARDIS, or maybe rigging up something special on a computer back in Roswell."

The Doctor turned to Kyle, who nodded an agreement at this point, and then the Doctor gestured that Kyle should bring his bracelet wrist close to the portable Kaaltan computer - and had him hold it there for nearly a minute. Then it was Rose's turn, and she sat down on the riser next to the Doctor so as to be more comfortable for the process."Alright, do you want to pick up a pocket chip at the Concourse tomorrow?" he asked Rose as he finished. "You've got that outfit of yours to collect, as I recall."

"I didn't even remember that we'd mentioned that to you," Rose admitted. "But yes, that sounds good." She looked over at Kyle, as if wondering if he'd come back down to the Concourse with her, but he didn't return the eye contact. "Do you want to tell us how to move the data to the chip, and clear out the traces?"

"No - it shouldn't be too hard, but we've had quite a day, haven't we?" the Doctor admitted. "If any of you try before I have a chance to give a lesson, then just ask for help mode, it seems pretty good - a similar idea to the search genies - but you weren't there for that, were you?"

"No, but we heard about them when we picked up the results of the Genie's labors," Kyle pointed out.

"Oh, right. Speaking of, did you make any attempt to clear away the traces of the Genie's activity?" Rose and Kyle shared a slightly stricken look when the Doctor posed this question. "That's okay - it wouldn't have been so easy. We should make a try when we get a chance, but I think that the encryption guards I set up on the kids' accounts should be good for a while yet."

"Well, I guess that's my cue to go back to my own room," Kyle said, wandering close to the door. "See you both for breakfast in the morning? Down in the cafeteria?"

"No, let's order in," Rose suggested. "Maria's room. We haven't had poison issues with the stuff that they bring us, now have we?"

"Can't argue with that logic," the Doctor agreed, and after a moment Kyle nodded, and made his way out the door. Rose turned around to stare at the comfortable mattress at the lowest point of the room's rounded floor, and then looked up to meet the Doctor's gaze.

"Well, as you said, it's been a long day," she said with a throaty chuckle, and quickly reached down to pop the snap at the waist of her jeans. The Doctor continued to watch, bemused, as she worked the pants down and away from her bottom, and kicked her comfortable sneakers off when they were getting in the way. Whichever way Rose had intended it, he didn't really get a 'good' look, because the plaid shirt that Rose had been wearing was fairly long and naturally fell past the tops of her thighs - but that didn't stop the air in the room from being charged with a certain amount of natural excitement.

It actually took more than one try for the Doctor to come up with something to say and make himself heard. "Teasing, Miss Tyler?" was what he finally came out with.

"Not necessarily," she insisted, stepping close and brushing a lock of blonde hair back away from her eyes. "It's sort of up to you, Mister Doctor." Admitting that much seemed to take all of Rose's forthrightness and she dropped her gaze to her own bare feet. "I mean, well, I think that you know how much I like you by now, and - we've been through so much together." She managed to look up and lock her eyes with his at this point. "We've both been circling the edges of the floor for so long - will you dance with me tonight?"

After a long moment, the Doctor smiled at her, a fierce excitement dancing in his eyes - and something in the power of that look made Rose literally weak in the knees - and left her gasping with mixed shock and dismay as she caught her body with her hands on the carpeted floor. Even though, when the Doctor hurried over to help her sit down on the mattress, there was nothing beyond the gentle kindness that she was used to in his eyes, Rose was still shaken by something that had happened to her between one breath and another, and he could tell.

"As you might have noticed, I'd like to," the Doctor admitted. "But - well, it's hard to phrase this without sounding a bit full of myself, but dancing with me can be dangerous. I'm not sure that anything you've seen so far has prepared you."

"Why should you worry so much about sounding full of yourself _this_ time?" Rose muttered bitterly, and that got a laugh from the Doctor.

"And there's young Kyle Valenti, who's clearly so eager to - to dance," the Doctor admitted as he sat on the mattress himself, not right next to Rose, and pulled his own shoe off. "Could you really stand to disappoint him?"

"Kyle? Well, Kyle's a cute kid, but - well, I'm afraid he's not nearly the man to match you, as far as I'm concerned," Rose admitted a bit awkwardly. "I suppose that I wouldn't mind taking him for a fling, try teaching the American lad a thing or two. We're not likely to meet again, after your business with his Roswellian friends is done, I suppose."

"No, it'd probably be safer to have no contact, once I sort out the Granolith affair," the Doctor admitted, a bit wistfully. "Between that, and Serena's involvement, the timelines could get somewhat messy."

"That wasn't really what I was thinking about, but alright," Rose admitted.

"Maybe you should - try a whirlwind romance with Kyle," the Doctor said, and Rose looked at him in shock. "He's a bright boy, and has probably figured out the reasons that there's unlikely to be a long-term entanglement. But, well - ever since I whisked you away from London, you haven't had much conventional passion in your life."

"No, I suppose not - not even Mickey," Rose admitted. Though she'd seen a lot of the charming young man from her past, before he disappeared into an alternate dimension, they hadn't really fanned the old flame as such. "So are you saying that you'll be here, waiting - even that you want me to go and have my fun with Kyle before we - sort out our own thing? Sorry, I just can't repeat 'dance' one more time in this conversation." The Doctor wagged his eyebrows at her. "Except just that one time, in the quotes."

"Well - I'm not going anywhere without you," the Doctor admitted. "And - well, yes. I'm not going to insist on it, or anything - when could I ever get you to do something that you didn't want to do? But I do think that it would do you good to date somebody in your own species, before - before getting involved with something like, well, you know."

"I don't really know what I'd be getting involved in," Rose admitted softly. "But I suppose that's the point. Come on, if we're not going to flirt any more, then I'm tired enough that we should both turn in. Suit jacket, please?" She held out an arm for it, and with his best slightly bemused air, the Doctor passed it over. "Since you don't have a dressing gown here, at least I assume you don't, then maybe you'd feel just as comfortable staying in your trousers and shirt?"

"Maybe that's best, I suppose." The Doctor stretched out on one side of the mattress. "It's different, trying to get to sleep outside of the TARDIS. I can feel the planet, spinning around beneath us and flying through space. Not like it's really trying to throw us off, just - well, it's just enough to make me feel a bit dizzy."

"Aww, poor Doctor," Rose said with a laugh, putting the jacket (now folded,) on a riser. "Do you need something to help you fall... oh." Turning back around, she saw that the Doctor had his eyes closed and somehow an expression of completely restful slumber on his face. "Never mind then, I suppose."

So she lay down on the other side of the bed and thought about what tomorrow might hold for her - and Kyle Valenti.

#

Maria wandered down the corridors of some run-down sector of Kaalto, frustrated. She couldn't remember how she had gotten there, or where the rest of her friends were, but for the time being that didn't bother her. What she was aware of was Michael's voice, calling to her. She _had_ to find him - he was in trouble, worse trouble than jail or even a murder sentence in alien prison, and nobody else was paying attention for him. At a junction of ways, she listened intently, and hurried down the left branch.

This corridor curved fairly tightly to the left after twenty paces or so, to the point that it was leading back in the direction that she had come, somewhat to the side, but Maria wasn't worried about getting lost if she could keep following the sound of Michael's screaming out her name. All of a sudden, as she finished navigating the curve, she realized that somebody was blocking the way - a Kaaltan who seemed somewhat familiar, but she couldn't say how. "Get out of the way," she grumbled, and he backed off a bit, and started to keep pace, hurrying backwards so as to keep himself in a position where he could look into her face. "Who are you, anyway?"

"I would have hoped that you'd remember my name, Maria," he muttered. "I remembered your touch."

"What? When?" she muttered, hoping that he'd understand what she was trying to ask. She didn't have time for proper grammar.

"This morning, as you began your studies."

That was cryptic, but Maria managed to place his face, and even come up with a name. "Our guide at the college, Xamev. Sorry, I'm a little - well, anyway. What are you doing here?"

"I'd like to help you. All your friends are beset by troubles, Maria, and those who serve me have much power. All that is required is for you to tell me what service you most need."

Something about this suddenly made Maria suspicious. Why did he really want her to say any such thing? Yes, 'beset by troubles' was probably understating the case for the TARDIS expedition to Kaalto, but if this kid really had any ability to help them out, then she was certain that he wouldn't do it without an ulterior motive - though that might just be trying to impress her because he was smitten. Maria was willing to give herself enough credit to entertain that possibility, but hardly enough to count on it.

"I won't say that it's the most important service in the long run, but I'm trying to find Michael," Maria admitted. "He's in trouble." Would Xamev volunteer to help Maria reconnect with her boyfriend?

"Beware." Xamev just pointed out into the hallway before them. Dimly, in the distance, Maria could see a familiar shape huddling in a corner, hurt or _very_ frightened. More scared than she had ever seen Michael. But between them, was a great and terrible shadow in the shape of a stone creature with a fanged face, four claws, and huge wings that might be razor-edged.

"Nonsense," Maria said confidenly. "The shadows should beware of _me_, tonight." And with that, she charged towards Michael - but she felt the shadow creature wrapping itself around her, and her skin went ice-cold.

"This wasn't supposed to happen," Xamev complained from behind her. "Adwenit."

And with that, the shadow creature immediately fell through a hole that had been hiding behind something very small, and left for other places, dropping Maria in one of them - across Liz Parker's bed! Liz groaned and fumbled for the bedside lamp, trying to figure out what had just hit her.

"Umm, sorry about that," Maria muttered, somehow completely unsurprised at the abruptness of her return to Earth. "Isn't, err - Max somewhere here too?"

"Huh?" As soon as Liz had her eyes open, she rolled them up very far in her head. "He, umm - he left, err, about two hours ago, I think. Went back to his place."

"Oh, I see." Maria did indeed understand that much - she just hadn't realized before that she had arrived in Liz's bedroom so close to dawn. It still looked very dark outside.

"Maria - what the Antar are you doing here?"

"That, umm - that's a very good question," Maria admitted. "I went to bed with Alex - not _with_ him, just sharing a room, it's a long story - but I remember charging through the dark corridors, looking for Michael, and he was calling out to me. Liz - Michael and Isabel are in some alien jail, and..."

"This is too weird," Liz grumbled. "Am I dreaming?"

The question hit Maria like a cascade of ice water. Whether Liz was dreaming herself or just a figment of a dream was something that she wasn't sure of, but suddenly Maria was certain that she herself was caught in a dream. Everything made much more sense that way - and in that second of realization, she felt the dream start to fragment, as it so often seemed to do, self-realization being most of the way to true wakefulness. Maria didn't want to expend the effort to try any lucid dreaming tricks at this point, but on the off-chance that Liz was actually real, she tried to express one other thought. "We found Tess - she's taken over the Antarian moon."

"I know that," a voice told her from the dark bedroom. "I was the one who told you about her, remember?"

It wasn't Liz's voice, or even Max's, and so Maria realized that she wasn't in the same bedroom anymore - she was lying on a bed with her head on a pillow, her body and limbs under a heavy blanket, and conscious of the fact that there were no windows, and only a faintly glowing string of numbers as light source - 4272. Maria freaked out at that clock reading, then forced herself to relax, reminding herself that it was perfectly sensible by the details of the Kaaltan time system that she had learned. There was also a familiar body next to her in the bed, not getting too close.

"I wasn't telling you," she said drowsily to Alex, hoping that speaking drowsily would help her get back to sleep. Surprisingly, it seemed to start working right away. "I was dreaming of Liz, and wanted to tell her, in case she remembered."

"Umm - sorry honey," he put in, "but I think that kind of logic only works if you're dreaming of Isabel." Sighed. "Which I think that I might have been, before you woke me."

"Sorry," Maria muttered, and shut up to give Alex as much of a chance to get back to Isabel as she could.

One thing bothered her as she sank back into a dreamless sleep of her own. Why had she dreamed about Xamev? Had her subconscious just brought him in as an enigmatic figure from the previous day, or was he also able to ent...

#

This time around, it was Rose who got into the bathing room first.

Kyle hadn't noticed any sounds before he opened the door. The first thing he realized afterward was that water was running, and then - wet blonde hair, creamy skin. "Ohmygawd." Somehow in the space of one second he had closed the door again, turned around one hundred eighty degrees, and closed his eyes - in case any of those two measures alone wouldn't protect Rose's privacy enough, he thought wryly to himself. "Sorry, umm, I didn't mean to - but the door wasn't locked."

"I suppose I didn't, sorry - glad it was you who prompted me, I suppose," Rose's voice came back. "How much, umm, did you see?"

"Uhh." It was with a guilty rush of pleasure that Kyle's mind replayed that split-second sight. Despite the first impressions, however, all of the 'naughtiest bits' had actually been more or less obscured, but he wasn't quite sure how to indicate that through the door. "A lot of skin, but not the full Belle, actually."

"Oh, okay." Rose almost sounded slightly disappointed - or maybe she was just still a bit upset. "One more question?"

"Sure, yeah, what's that?" Kyle wondered what would come next. It sounded as if Rose had come over very close behind him, as he rested the back of his head against the door.

"Just how _do_ I lock this thing?" Kyle laughed and went back through his memories to try and figure out how to talk her through the alien mechanism.

When all five of them gathered in Maria's room to pick from the various breakfast foods that had been delivered to them, the mood was more than a little quiet and subdued. Maria seemed particularly withdrawn and introspective, which was definitely an unusual mood for the usually energetic girl, and Alex and the Doctor appeared to have somewhat caught the sentiment from her. (Alex was probably missing Isabel somewhat fierce, and maybe he still wasn't completely over his brush with food poisoning.)

Only Rose herself seemed to be full of enthusiasm and excitement. When Kyle had finished dressing and straightening up his room and luggage, (for whatever reason he'd felt impelled to make an efort,) and went into Maria's room, Rose was sitting at the other end of the 'sofa' from Alex, giggling at some joke in her head, and taking bites out of a spherical muffin-like pastry a little bigger than a softball.

It was the first time that Kyle had seen her in the morning, since that one accidental glance in the shower, and at first he thought that there was something slightly familiar about the light summer-y dress that she was wearing, a white background with a pattern of blue and red flower plossoms, green leaves and stems. For a few seconds after he'd recognized the garment, Kyle actually wondered why she'd have borrowed any of Maria's clothes, and then he remembered how Rose and the Doctor had been barred from the TARDIS, which still held their luggage. Would they both be reduced to begging for clean clothes for several days, until the mystery murder was solved?

It was at this point that Kyle looked for the Doctor, who was wearing the same dark brown suit as yesterday, and it seemed to be perfectly clean and crisp. Had somebody used alien powers to - no, they didn't have anybody left who could use alien powers on his behalf - at least, not any of the usual gang. Could he have asked a stranger, maybe even the kid who brought them breakfast?

Speaking of which - Kyle gathered up a baseball muffin of his own, and several other promising delicacies, and sat down on the middle of the couch. Rose had been excitedly waving him over by that point. "So, Mister Valenti, what do you have planned for the day?"

"Umm - I'll be happy to tag along, if you're still going down to the concourse, if you're still going there for your dress - and one of us was supposed to buy a memory card. I guess I can put that on my own expense account, since yours is mostly spoken for. Aside from that - no real plans. I guess I figured that I should be available in case anybody needed my help with the murder investigation, instead of making vacation plans."

"Hey, you bought some new clothes?" Maria asked from halfway across the room, at the end of the bed. "Do they look very - alien?"

"No, the girl in the shop - I don't know, she might have read my mind and pulled out an outfit idea that I sort of always wanted to make - except I can't sew for beans."

"Sorry to cut the discussion of clothes off short, but Kyle did say another magic phrase, girls," the Doctor said soberly from a chair on the other side of the coffee table. "The murder investigation."

Alex perked up slightly at that. "Yeah - do we have any leads from yesterday?"

"Just one, and it's not much, I admit," the Doctor said slowly. "Having eliminated a few possibilities, espcially with respect to motive, I'm convinced that the answer to the killing lies back close to the scene - on campus. The Bailiff might not be eager to let any of us ask too many questions around there, which is why I didn't try too hard yesterday, but we might have to - what's the saying that starts that way?"

"We may have to break a few eggs to get this omelette made," Kyle quoted with relish.

Just at that moment, perhaps,an egg that nobody expected cracked open, because the video screen on the wall brightened and let out the alien equivalent of a phone ringtone. The five of them exchanged glances, and then the Doctor stepped over to speak for them, and touched the screen to accept the call. Kyle could just make out the angry face of a Kaaltan in impressive robes, one who he hadn't met before. From Maria and Alex's reactions, though, he wondered if they had met him.

"Good morning, Bailiff," the Doctor said, calmly and with a nod of his head in greeting. "Has there been a development in the case?"

"You could say that, Time Lord." the Bailiff growled. "Your 'student' Michael has escaped from jail, and though I cannot prove that you and the rest of your friends were involved, I have my suspicions."

There was a moment of stunned silence, and then Maria let out with an impressive scream. "You _lost_ my boyfriend, you..." Alex dived across and covered her mouth before she started to tell the Bailiff what she was thinking in any greater detail.

The Doctor seemed to think furiously for just an instant. "I'm sorry to hear that you're so suspicious of us, Bailiff. Myself, I suspect that this new development is not at all what it seems. Is it possible that Michael didn't even escape willingly. Someone might have, as the saying goes, 'busted him out' whether he wanted to come or not."

"Why would anybody want to do that?" the Bailiff sneered.

"I - I'm not sure of that yet," the Doctor admitted. "Do we need your permission to search for him ourselves? If so, may I request it?"

"Just a moment." The Bailiff's image became a slightly fuzzy greytone, and the sound cut out - he seemed to be turning his attention to a different screen on his end. Finally, after around two minutes, he came back to the Doctor. "Michael has been apprehended and is being brought back to jail in a secure transport. For whatever it's worth, his initial statements have been speaking of somebody taking him out of the jail while asleep or drugged unconscious, and experimenting on him."

"Really?" The Doctor grew concerned. "Do you have any further details on that?"

"Just this one quote," the Bailiff sighed, and read something out loud. "He said that if I co-operated, I would be returned to jail, but instead I bluffed on - on my Master the Time Lord's reputation, and convinced him to free me. At that time, I used energy discharges to destroy any samples of myself that might be in the lab, and quite a lot of his equipment there as well. At that time, the suspect - fled, commenting that he would not return me to legal custody no matter what I told him."

"I see," the Doctor said.

"Yes, a clever story," the Bailiff shot back. "On the other hand, it doesn't seem to me that Michael was attempting to return to my custody and surrender himself. In fact, my people might not have caught him in time - if I hadn't arranged them in a cordon around the township administration sector, specifically to intercept him on his way back to you."

There was a long pause. "I might be able to help explain that," the Doctor said. "I have established a low-level psychic link with my friends while they are here - it has already alerted me to an unrelated case of accidental food poisoning. I admit that I wasn't aware of Michael's situation before you alerted me, but the link might have helped him find his way here, when he was so disoriented that he wouldn't have been able to navigate directly back to Security. If he had arrived at our rooms, then after a short conversation, I would have escorted him back to your custody, Bailiff."

"You have explanations for everything, Time Lord," the Bailiff snapped. "Clever talker."

"Do the events of this morning change your word that I can continue to investigate the murder, clearing Michael and Isabel's names?" the Doctor pressed.

"I suppose not," the Bailiff grumbled. "But there are limits to my patience, and you have nearly reached them. Perhaps the opinions of my supervisors will let afford you more chances - that much I cannot say. Good day." And without waiting for a signoff, the screen darkened.

"Okay, what the hell?" Maria asked. "Who would take Michael out of jail just to - to test his DNA? That's what it seems like."

"Maybe somebody's already guessed something about us," Alex said unhappily. "About them, I mean. Whoever designed Michael and Isabel knew what they would look like as they grew up, right? We didn't think of that one when we planned to be anonymous."

"Yes, but I don't think that this changes our primary priorities," the Doctor said slowly. "The Bailiff will make doubly sure that nobody else gets at Michael or Isabel now, I think. His pride has been stung by this 'escape,' no matter who carried it out and why. We still need to get to the bottom of the original murder." He looked around. "Alex, Maria - are you both up for returning to campus with me?"

"Try and stop me," Alex muttered.

"Yeah, I'm up for it," Maria agreed. "What about checking in at the law and order station and talking to Michael first, though?"

"No, I don't want to let the Bailiff have such a good opportunity to change his mind," the Doctor said. "We'll swing by there after investigating on campus, near the scene of the crime - it isn't far, and we might have new evidence for him to consider by then, and actually get Michael and Isabel freed."

"Wouldn't that take the Magistrate's word?" Rose said. "She had them held on suspicion."

"Depends on their legal structure," Kyle said. "Here, I mean back on Earth, sheesh - you get arraigned by the judge, but the chief of police - or Sheriff - can still drop charges and set a suspect free, if he comes across good evidence that seems to justify such a decision."

"Alright, good enough," Maria said. "What about you two - Kyle, Rose?" She seemed to have a bit of laughter dancing in her eyes.

"We've got a shopping trip to go on," Kyle pointed out. "Nothing really exciting compared to your investigation, but each of us can do our bit." He considered. "Maybe we should agree on a place to meet for lunch?"

"I don't know how long we're going to be occupied," the Doctor said with a slight frown on his face. "But - there's a small cafe not far from the detention center - Maria and I grabbed something there yesterday. If you want to drop by there after you're done at the concourse, then we'll see..." He blinked, realizing something. "Oh, I nearly forgot. We picked up a few useful things yesterday."

"Who's we?" Alex asked, as the Doctor hurried out the door - and returned to the room half a minute later juggling three objects in his two hands - they were flat, and oblong shaped, and a bit smaller than a small hand held with the fingers and thumb all together.

"The cell phones, right!" Maria exclaimed happily.

"Not quite, but perhaps close enough," the Doctor admitted "We should be able to reach each other using these, and they'll be useful for finding your way around too, Kyle. I'll program the location of the cafe into it. They have a function that's somewhat similar to GPS direction finding on Earth, though they don't use satellites, just transmitters within and near the township itself."

"Alright, good enough," Kyle said. "Go team Roswell on three,and break."

Rose giggled a bit, but nobody else responded to that.


	10. Chapter 10

"Okay, here we are," Alex muttered as he, Maria, and the Doctor walked slowly through the corridors of the College at Kaalto township. "This is the bit where our sleuths return to the scene of the crime to look for evidence. We have got to that bit."

The Doctor turned to look at him. "Arthur Dent, right?"

"Yeah, actually. Do you like the books?"

"There's books about him?" The Doctor put a comically quizzical expression on his face for a moment, and just as Alex was about to ask for a clarification, he turned to consider the scene. "Okay, the first order of business is to confirm whether or not there actually is an automated security weapon, one capable of delivering the lethal strike, covering anywhere that the victim could have gotten to this spot from. I've gotten a theory about who could have controlled that weapon and how, but I need to be sure that it exists before barking too far up the tree."

"I thought that you gave the Bailiff the idea of checking on that possibility himself," Maria pointed out.

"Yes, I did - but I'm not sure that he'll tell me what the results of his check were, or be able to follow up on the lead in the way that... that we can." The Doctor looked around, considering. "Black Tarnation and all - if I hadn't surrendered my screwdriver, I'd have been able to use it to probe into the wall for the control circuits and power relays that would be necessary for a weapon like that, and trace them each way." He seemed very disspirited at having been seperated from his trustiest tool. "How else can we find them ourselves?" he asked his de facto assistants, seemingly desperate for a good idea.

Fortunately, Alex had one. "We still have high-level computer access, here in the college, right? Ask the system itself."

"Brilliant!" the Doctor admitted, turning about again. "Why didn't I think of that? Computer!" There was no obvious answer to his command. "Is there an AIVAS in the house, by any chance?" Still nothing.

"Maybe the pickups are only in the rooms, not - hallway," Maria suggested, feeling a bit uncertain about it. The Doctor nodded.

"Good point. Umm..." The Doctor turned, orienting, and tried a door a little way up the corridor, which the teenagers realized after a moment would be the same room that they had used the day before - before the murder. It didn't open automatically as he stepped near, and in a few seconds the Doctor found the little signal contact at the side of the doorframe and left his fingers on it until the door finally slid open.

"Yes, can I help y... Maria!" The young Kaaltan who was standing opposite the Doctor seemed very surprised. "Umm, your Lordship..."

"Sorry, umm - was just looking for an empty room to access the computer in," the Doctor told him. "No worries, if this one is taken, I'll just..."

"Er - try that one, two doors down," Xamev suggested gaily, pointing along the same wall back in the direction of where Maria and Alex had been standing near where the murdered person had been found. "Just before the turn in the hallway."

"Thanks muchly," the Doctor declared back, and headed off to try his luck again.

"I - I can't believe that I'm seeing you again," Xamev said to Maria, who shivered slightly, and Alex moved next to his old friend and even slightly in front of her, in a way that was obviously trying to be protective.

"Really?" Alex said. "Seems a bit of a coincidence that you're in the exact same room that you showed us to yesterday."

"Well, umm, okay, you caught me, I thought I'd do my work here today, just in case - but I didn't really think that it would work, that you'd have any reason to come back, especially considering what I heard - that you were in the Bailiff's confinement on suspicion of murder."

"I was, for a few hours yesterday," Maria said. "Our friends still are, and we're trying to find evidence to set them free with."

"Yes, this will do," the Doctor said, having opened up the door that Xamev had indicated. "Computer, this is the Doctor."

"Voiceprint recognized," the computer voice said from inside his room. "How may I assist you today?"

"Are there any automated weapons in the corridor outside this room, part of the College's security system or something of the sort?"

"Affirmative. Level two red corundum lasers were installed in all public access spaces when Kaalto colony was constructed, until the store of available parts was exhausted."

"And this was the oldest part of the township, the first constructed?" Maria asked, but the computer didn't answer her. The Doctor looked back out the door and gestured Maria and Alex over. Xamev looked curious, but elected not to tag along and went back to minding his own business.

"Red corundum," Alex repeated as he joined. "As in, a ruby laser?"

"Yes," the Doctor said absently. "The TARDIS translator is like that sometimes - red and the technical name for ruby and sapphire crystals must be closer to the way the phrase works in Antarian. They might not use the stones as jewelry or have particular words for the different shadings the way that Earthlings do." He returned his attention to the computer for a moment once the door had closed behind Maria. "Can you indicate the placement of the lasers and their coverage area on a schematic of the nearby hallways?" The computer represented that with a miniaturized hologram. "Oh, before I forget, are there security cameras in the public access spaces as well?"

"In many of them, yes," the computer told him. "Visual recording devices are now marked in blue."

"Will it be this easy?" Maria asked.

"Show me the footage for device 58B2, starting with time index 1187 yesterday," the Doctor commanded.

"Cannot comply - the relevant videos for cameras in that sector running 1165 to 1220 are not in repository," the computer informed him. "Trace indicates that they have been cleared by the use of a high security access code."

"The Bailiff!" Maria exclaimed. "Is he holding out on the evidence that could clear Michael and Isabel?"

"No, I won't believe that," the Doctor said. "The Bailiff might not be the most open-minded being, but he's an honest lawman at heart. If he has this footage, and it shows that they're innocent, he'll release them - but he might make us sweat first."

"But it might be less than conclusive," Alex put in. "I can see that he'd remove evidence from the main computer files to keep, um, anyone from poking around looking for it." Another explanation occurred to him. "Or someone else in his office might be less than honest, even in cahoots with the killer."

"Well, we can ask about this later on, but let's continue on with what we have," the Doctor said authoritatively. "Maria, tell you everything that you remember about yesterday - what you heard and saw after you left the room."

As Maria related her memories, disjointedly and a little flustered, the Doctor worked quickly at the computer keyboard, building up a sort of schematic of stick-figure images in the holographic corridor, and the businesslike way he went about it seemed to reassure her, calming her babble down and eliciting more useful information. When she had finished, the Doctor silently triggered a kind of a simulated reply - one generic figure walking on his own down the hallway, getting struck down by a red beam of laser light, rushing out of the way of that weapon and running for help, before he collapsed and was met by three others - Maria leading, then Michael and Isabel.

"Okay, so - what now?" Alex asked, breaking the silence that had settled. "Is there much else that we need to do here at the scene of the crime - or near it, anyway? We don't have the equipment to do a full forensic examination of the corridor, and it probably won't tell us much that's really useful anyway, will it?"

"No, not really," the Doctor said. "One thing - computer?"

"How may I assist you?"

"Can you tell if the corundum laser unit mounted at intersection, umm, 28D of this floor and sector was discharged within the past local day?" The doctor checked an elegant wristwatch and added on, "and ten segments, just to be on the safe side."

"Yes, Doctor, that unit fired a single beam for approximately one point six seconds," the computer replied, and then recited a date and time in the Kaaltan local calendar-clock system.

"The time of the attack, or when we heard the first scream at least," the Doctor said.

"Guess it shouldn't surprise us that you have a very precise sense of time," Maria joked. "So - I don't think that there's any doubt that laser was the murder weapon."

"I don't believe so, no," the Doctor agreed. "Is there any record of why the laser fired? Surely some sort of diagnostic trace of the programming criteria would be saved, in case of a computer glitch - so that the tragedy of an accidental injury or death from the system could be debugged and would never be repeated."

"Such traces are saved, affirmative," the computer told him. "But the traces have been cleared."

"Just like the video surveillance," Alex said morosely.

"But still, I think that we have something to take to the Bailiff," the Doctor said happily. "Um - computer, I'll need to copy my simulation work and other data to my ID bracelet - do you have the appropriate hardware here?"

The computer identified the appropriate peripheral attachment and started saving the Doctor's work as he put the bracelet up next to it. "Wait a second, there's one big problem with that plan, Doctor," Alex said. "So far, we've proved that somebody used clever computer reprogramming and the security weapons to kill that boy - or we think that we have. But we've also proved that _you're_ clever with computers, and were more so before you gave up your sonic screwdriver. And you don't have access to the TARDIS. What if he - if he turns around and accuses you?"

Maria gasped, and the Doctor let out an unhappy sigh. "He may try. But - well, but the fact that I **did** give up my screwdriver freely, and that I'm coming with this information to him, should buy me a little reasonable doubt at least. Though I'm not sure that these people have the bit about reasonable doubt in their legal codes, come to think of it. That's a bit worrying." He brought his wrist away from the data writer and rubbed it slightly with his right hand. "In any event - there's simply not much help for it. I - well, I have a theory about how the 'computer hacking' was actually done, which would exonerate all of us if proved right, and also represents a great enough threat that the authorities need to be informed."

"Oh, yeah," Maria said, as the Doctor led the way back to the door. "This sounds just peachy."

#

"Miss Rosey!" Emani exclaimed as soon as she looked their way and saw Rose and Kyle approaching her 'tent' on the sales concourse. "It's ready, and I've been waiting and waiting - and I was worried that you wouldn't be able to come back. They said that there was a murder at the college campus, around the same time that you left to go there, and two strangers held in custody, a young man and a pretty girl..."

"Those are friends of ours," Kyle told her softly. "Things were pretty crazy yesterday, so that's why we weren't able to make it back until now." Emani bobbed her head to the side in what seemed to be a 'well, alright' kind of gesture. "And, for the record, the murder had happened by the time we got the message and rushed off. That's why we asked directions to the college."

"Oh, alright." Emani seemed to still be a bit puzzled, and Rose was tempted to say that they'd gone to meet their friends, to help in any way they could as the authorities investigated - but that wouldn't exactly be the whole truth, and leaving her to draw her own conclusions seemed safer than throwing any more deception around. "Well, your dress is here, let me see, umm..." Emani led the way into the tent, behind a long low series of shelves that she generally used as a combination desk and sales counter, and produced a rectangular box not much bigger than a shoebox, setting it on the counter. "I just need to swipe your bracelet one more time, to finalize the charge, and then you can take it with you."

"My dress is in there?" Rose asked, not sure if she should feel bemused or horrified. "It hardly even seems big enough, and - well, where I come from, fabulous dresses like that, you store on - on a hanger." Emani didn't seem to be able to place the reference. "A thing that supports the top of the outfit a bit like a person's shoulders would, and lets the rest fall free, so it doesn't have to..."

"To fold, or wrinkle, or scrunch," Emani said, smiling wide as she got the point. "You only worked in primitive fabrics before - raw plant fibers, that kind of thing?"

"Umm - well, not me directly, but yeah, I guess that's what I have experience with," Rose admitted, looking down at the cotton sundress that she'd borrowed from Maria that morning.

"You can get much beauty from simple materials like that, but you do need to take better care of them, yeah," Emani agreed, sounding very friendly now that she was down to talking shop. "This is molecularly simulated fabric. We've worked out a lot of clever tricks with such things - partly because we don't have much room in the enclosed gardens to grow clothing fibers and such. One of the advantages of this variant is, you could probably squeeze the whole dress into a ball, sit on it and rest your head on it for a week, then shake it out and it'll _still_ look lovely."

"Umm, well, thanks," Rose mumbled, surprised by this at least as much as the more impressively alien things that she'd experienced. "Oh, right - wrist swipe." She held out the bracelet near to Emani's sensor, and completed the transaction. "One other thing that you might be able to help us with - we need to buy a little computer storage card, to copy files around with. Any idea where we could find..."

"There's digital supply places everywhere on the concourse now," Emani grumped good-naturedly. "Can hardly walk ten paces without walking past one - or bumping into them, if you're not careful. But - well, they're all kinduv crooks, charging huge profits - how much storage do you need?"

"Not much," Kyle put in. "Umm - 50R." He'd read that off of a sheet of scrap plastic paper that the Doctor had given him. (Not the pages with the research results on them, but from a pile of to-reuse pages that they'd found inside a desk drawer in Maria's room.)

"XKCY standard?"

"Umm - no, XKCD."

Emani frowned just slightly, and Rose wondered if there were actually two variant types of chip with such similar code names, or if somebody had gotten the details (or the translation) wrong. "Well, I'm tempted to tell you to leave the concourse entirely and check out Giloren sector - but it's not the nicest neighborhood to strangers, especially off-worlders. Maddy B probably won't cheat you too much, especially if he sees your credit total, Rose, and you can convince him that you just don't have any more to spend."

"Umm - the plan was that Kyle was going to pay," Rose muttered. "I didn't think I'd have enough."

"You should be able to cover a more than fair price," Emani insisted. "If you let your gentleman friend pay, he'll be paying twice as much."

"Well, thanks I guess," Kyle said. "How do we find Maddy?"

"Hmm." Emani considered the question, and then came back around from behind her shelves, towards the main entrance to the tent, and Rose and Kyle followed her. Peeking out into the concourse, Emani seemed to geet her bearings. "Okay, you take a left turn on your way out, and keep going straight for a long time - well, as straight as the aisle will let you, it kind of bends back and forth a little bit it isn't hard to tell that aisle from the branches and crossways. One junction before it dead-ends, you should see a portable building made out of bright green plastic, taller than anything else in the area. Circle around the back of that and go in through the circular doorway - that's Maddy's shop."

"Um, alright," Rose said, hoping that the directions would be as easy to follow as they sounded, or better. "Thanks again."

"No, thank you for your patronage," Emani insisted. "I hope that the outfit gives you a great deal of joy."

It was actually easy enough to find the dark green building, go inside at the proper door, and meet Maddy B. Kyle's first impression of him was that Maddy was the biggest Kaaltan, or Antarian of any type, that he'd met - as tall as a some of the tallest NBA players,, but built to that scale more like a football player. His manner was the same sort of determined friendliness that reminded Kyle of a kind of sports player, too - the old high school jocks in Roswell who had no better choice than to become store managers when they grew into their late twenties, (usually of businesses that their parents owned.) Kyle never wanted to become one himself, but he felt a bit reassured by the familiarity of this archetype, and sat back with a grin to watch as Rose bickered over the price. A few times Maddy actually asked about Kyle's credit, but he refused to get swiped, saying that 'The lady's the one who wants it' and refusing to be deflected from that purchasing tactic.

Soon enough they'd finalized the purchase, and come back around to the front side of the green building. As Rose tucked the tiny memory card into the rectangular garment bag, (which wouldn't have had room for any bigger of an item,) Kyle pulled out the communicator that the Doctor had given him and pulled up the directions entry for the cafe where they'd agreed to meet. "Proceed up Xyzzyx way until you come to Concourse exit Eighteen," the device informed him in exactly that same smoothly synthesized voice that some elevators talk to you in, while showing him a graphic for the first step of the journey that Kyle was entirely unable to relate to their actual surroundings.

"That's really helpful, little thing," he grumbled at it.

"It's like a GPS unit," Rose said. "If all else fails, we can try walking around, and see how the dot marking our current location changes, use that to orient."

"You have a lot of experience with GPS devices?" Kyle asked her, slightly surprised.

"Well, yeah, I don't have a car, but a few friends of mine..." She trailed off. "Whoops."

"Oh, right." What with the culture gap of America versus Britain, it was easy to forget that Rose also came from several years in the Earth's future. "Guess I'll have to watch for affordable GPS mapping to hit the market - what, my senior year in college, something like that?" Rose smiled as enigmatically as she could. "Alright, then."

Her suggested trick was good, and soon they'd taken the indicated exit from the concourse. "At this point," the communicator told them, "you have a choice. Wait for the local transit car, which will be arriving in four minutes, or proceed down the central walkway."

"It's pretty early yet, right? On our own two feet, then, the whole way," Rose suggested, and Kyle was glad enough to agree. The communicator navigation screen led them through several pedestrian passages, some smaller corridors, and then to an elevator.

"Ascend to level thirteen," it told them as Kyle got close to the door. Rose reached forward to signal for a lift going up.

"I guess these people don't have any superstitions about a thirteenth floor," she pointed out. It was possibly only thirteen seconds after that when the door irised open, and Kyle stepped inside.

They had the elevator car to themselves once the door closed again and Kyle punched the button for thirteen - and only just realized that Rose was coming towards him before they were suddenly in each other's arms, her lips planted against his in a passionate first kiss. Kyle felt an urge to stiffen with shock, but instead allowed himself to relax into the older girl's embrace, leaning his back against the side of the enclosed cube of a room. One part of his mind was trying to think of what level they'd been on to start with, how fast an alien elevator might move, doing mental multiplication and guessing how likely they were to be interrupted by another stop before level fourteen, while another aspect of his brain was coaching him to stroke his fingers through Rose's loose and long golden hair, and how hard to purse his lips against her lips and tongue.

They were still deep in mid-kiss when the door spiraled open again for level thirteen, and Rose turned to look just in time to see it swirling closed again. She stepped away from Kyle, trying to get close enough to stick an arm or leg in the door, and then thought better of it. Surely any responsible civilization would have thought of the safeguards necessary to keep a person from being injured in such a situation - but what if the Kaaltan mindset was so different from humanity than nobody would think of doing such a thing?

Kyle maanged to save the day by turning to the bank of controls, and on his second try, pressed a button that opened the door again. They filed outside as if nothing had been unusual about their trip, butwhen Kyle realized that nobody else seemed to be around, never mind waiting, he cleared his throat and tried to think of something to say.

"I thought that we'd both enjoy that," Rose started, beating him to the punch.

"Uh - well, I certainly f-found it fun, yeah," Kyle stammered, wishing that he could manage just a little bit more cool factor. "But..."

"Don't worry," she said. "Casual thing, holiday fling - for now. Not that I'm ever exactly not 'on holidays' since I started travelling in the TARDIS, I suppose, but - you know what I mean? Is that okay?"

"Yeah, that's totally cool," Kyle insisted. "How about we find our way to that cafe, though." He chuckled. "I can buy you a cup of of Clakh, since I happen to know that you're too low on credit to insist that we go dutch."

Rose laughed merrily. "Okay, so which way?" she asked him with a gesture at the communicator. Kyle looked. Since it still showed the icon for the elevator, it was much easier for him to get his bearings. "Down the left way," he said, gesturing accordingly. "Shouldn't be far now."

#

Once they arrived at the Bailiff's security complex, it was a while before the Doctor could speak with the Bailiff, or anybody else of much importance, for that matter. When they finally got an interview, the Bailiff seemed to be even more hostile than usual without explaining why, and looked stonily at the evidence that the Doctor carefully presented without really commenting one way or the other. When the presentation he had planned was over, the Doctor finally let a bit of sarcasm and testiness show. "Should I even bother explaining my theory about the way that the murderer controlled the laser weapons?"

The Bailiff shook himself irritably. "Frankly, no, not at this point, Doctor. We've already reached the same conclusions, and also exhaustively analyzed your little sonic device. Though it neither carries nor leaves traces of electronic intrusions, I have to say that it is the best tool for such 'hacking' into our systems that existed on Kaalto at the time of the murder. The fact that you have brought this evidence to us openly, I believe I can safely discount as a smokescreen - you had to know that we would reach such conclusions for ourselves eventually, even if you didn't give us enough credit to beat you to it. Even without any plausible motive, this is enough that I am forced to take action."

"I - I see," the Doctor admitted. "So I am to be held for trial myself?"

"Pending an investigation, at least," the Bailiff agreed. Without any obvious signal other than his words, the door opened and five members of the Kaaltan campus watch filed in, intimidating to a man.

"You won't find enough evidence of all this that will satisfy a jury," the Doctor protested, trying to keep as much of his composure as he could. Alex and Maria were both speechless by this point.

"I admit that it'll be hard to prove the allegations," the Bailiff said, rising and gesturing that the three outworlders should follow him. Without much reluctance, the Doctor did as he was bid, showing little surprise as the Watchmembers filed in on either side of him, and of Alex and Maria as they trailed behind. The Bailiff led the way into the open room, where there were more Kaaltan security personnel than they had ever seen before. "You're a clever man, Doctor, whether you're truly a villain or not. If I'm to have any hope of finding the truth, I will have to look in the one place you'd feel comfortable hiding your dirty secrets - the place you don't think that anybody else can enter without your permission."

There was a moment of a stunned silence before the Roswellians suddenly erupted in exclamations. Maria's offering was just reaction: 'No, not the T...', while Alex simultaneously tried a warning: 'Doctor, look out, he's going to try...'

Alex didn't really have time to get to any helpful content in his alarm, and most of what he did say couldn't have been easily understood at the time. The Bailiff extended one hand towards the Doctor, and suddenly the chain around the Doctor's neck began to rise into the air, seemingly of its own accord. With the expertise that the Bailiff could bring to using his natural Antarian powers when he chose to employ them, purloining the TARDIS key took little time, and though the Doctor made one desperate snatch to retain his property, all his fingers closed on were empty air.

When the Bailiff had the key chain in his own hand, the key itself dangling down only about an inch, the Doctor glared furiously at him, panting a little. "Many have tried to seize the TARDIS for themselves," he hissed in a low, dangerous voice. Two of the guards came close to him from either side, as if ready to grab his arms, but didn't - perhaps they were waiting for him to actually attack the Bailiff. "It's been two hundred years since anybody got so far as wresting the key away from me by force. But even that desperate measure will not avail you."

"I have one desperate measure left," the Bailiff said. "First off, I do not covet your TARDIS for itself. I seek only justice."

"And if your courts find me guilty, what then of my property?" the Doctor snarled back.

"The Magistrate may seize it as retribution, but that is not my affair, and I will seek no credit for it," the Bailiff said. "In any event, the first matter before us is finding evidence." He passed the key off to another silent Kaaltan who had been standing nearby. With a bright flash of light and a sense of liquidly shifting flesh, the new holder of the key transformed into a perfect likeness of the Doctor, complete with his suit.

The Doctor stared at his doppleganger in dull horror, and then words burst out of him again. "No, no, you cannot do this. It is not for my own sake that I ask now, but for concern out of the safety of your man. He will face great danger if he so much as leaves the confines of this station wearing my face. Enough time has passed, I would fear leaving myself if I could not convince you to take action. At least wait long enough for me to explain my theories and my fears..."

With a gestur rom the Bailiff, the Doctor was held back by two of the Watch. "Excellent," the Bailiff said in a stage whisper to the false Doctor. "This facade will be enough to get you access to the TARDIS. Once you get to the site, use this token as mine to order that the barrier be brought down again." He passed over a little plastic bauble, and then stood back, satisfied, as the false Doctor strode out the front door of the Bailiff's headquarters.

And everybody saw him get struck down by the powerful blast of a red laser. A young officer, taken entirely by surprise, rushed out to help his fallen comrade, and was also hit and collapsed.

"Nobody else can leave this station until we know that it's safe," the Doctor burst out. The Bailiff glared at him. "Well, if you don't want to listen to me at this point, it's your own people that you'd be sending out to be cut down. I **will** tell you what's going on, though, unless you gag my mouth to prevent my speech. This is all because of your damnably helpful computer genies. Aritificially intelligent servitors and bright, inquisitive college students - really that's a bad combination."

The Bailiff gaped. "But all computer genies that students have access to are programmed with firm limits on their access."

Alex was starting to get it, now. "But of all your smartest and most imaginative young people, surely there would be one who was clever and unscrupulous enough to push the limits just a little. There always is, and normally it doesn't matter, not that much. But with genie technology in the mix - what if one hypothetical student manages to unlock a genie just enough to order it, 'Find out better ways of circumventing security limits on computer access, and use them to increase your control of the Kaalto built-in systems. Repeat until I order you differently."

Now it was the Bailiff's turn to stare at them in dawing, silent horror. "What - what do we do?" one of the Security assistants asked in an oddly childlike voice.

"Xamev!" Maria exclaimed. "He's the Genie's master - he has to be, all the pieces fit. He either arranged to be our guide when we showed up at the College, because he was curious, or that was a coincidence. But he saw enough to guess that we'd be convenient points of suspicion, so he finally used the access that the Genie gave him to kill someone - a rival, or someone he'd come to hate. That's why he was doing research near the scene, to try and keep a direct eye on investigations in a way that security cameras couldn't tel him - and that's why he broke into my dreams last night."

"Perhaps," the Doctor muttered. "It's not conclusive proof, but suggestive, and I give you full points for intuition my dear. However, the sad truth is that finding the master first is going about it backwards. We could not hope to subdue him while the Genie is free to act and defend him, and once the Genie has been vanquished it should not be hard to find out the identity of its master by computer analysis."

"But - but even if this is true, how could such a program be overcome now?" the Bailiff asked, sounding nervous himself.

"You've built your network systems around an N-1333 TVO architecture, right?" the Doctor asked. The Bailiff looked blank, but two of the others around the room nodded. "Then I doubt that the Genie could have compromised the key security override yet - not unless it's been on the rampage for much longer than would seem likely. Do you know how to access that override?"

"Well - yes," the Bailiff admitted, looking surprised. "I - well, I tried to use it against you, only an hour ago, but couldn't identify a signature for the trojans that I supposed you had used your screwdriver to implant in the system, to establish control that you could use even after surrendering it."

For a second, he seemed to be considering a resurgence of suspicion the Doctor's way, but then his eyes glanced over to the fallen shapeshifter, and once again he couldn't reconcile his old theories with any reason that the Doctor should program the lasers to shoot down someone who looked like him. "And - and there's a common kernel signature to all the Genies, isn't there? We can lock them all down. It would cause some disruptions and inconvenience, until we found the one genie with the wrong access levels for its stated purpose, and allowed the rest to resume their duties, but I think anyone would agree that it's what we have to do under the circumstances."

"Yes, yes," someone else chimed in. "But how do we _get_ to the access point for the override? The Genie and the master will know what's up if we charge off from here - and with those lasers just about everywhere between here and there..." The speakers let various parts of his body shake to and fro in a most disturbing fashion.

The Doctor immediately seized on this opportunity to get down to business. "Okay, how far away is it? Can we identify how many of the lasers, and what other obstacles or dangers that might plausibly be computer-controlled, would be between? We can't afford to stay here shaking in our slippers. Your little master has struck thrice now, and I suspect it will be getting easier each time, harder to keep the power over life and death from going to his head."

"Yes, of course," the Bailiff agreed, pulling up a schematic on the big situation table. "Is it dangerous to use our computers in here? Our security is strong, but probably not invincible."

"Probably best to use it while we've got it," Alex suggested. "No accessing systems outside, though - in fact, if you've got a firewall lockdown mode here, I suggest you turn it on." Someone else rushed off to attend to that. "And while we're making helpful suggestions, would somebody mind going into confinement and letting our friends go?"

"We're a little busy here," the Bailiff grumped. "That might be the safest place for them, unless you can think of a good reason why they'd be indispensable out here."

"Umm, actually, well, I can." Everybody turned around to see a tiny young Kaaltan woman, probably less than four foot ten, half hidden by the desk that she was standing behind. She nervously fiddled with something that looked like goggles strapped around her head. (They hadn't seen anyone wearing Earth-style glasses on the alien planet, so maybe this was the nearest equivalent, for those whose vision issues couldn't be corrected by Healers.) "The, umm, there's the maintenance droid tunnels, underneath the floor all over this level. There's an access port into the tunnels here, in the back workrooms of the security complex, and if this override access point is where I think it is, there's an access port to come back up in the next room over. No lasers or other defensive weapons down in the tunnels there."

Alex smiled cautiously at this idea, but the Bailiff scowled and started to rant at her. "No weapons - unless you count the droids themselves, which a Genie could easily take over if it's as powerful as the Doctor suggests. And we put life sign sensors down through all of those tunnels just last year, to give us warning when the mid-age kids start playing around down there. I was overseeing the installation of those sensors, don't forget that Clapta."

"Yes, life sign sensors," Clapta insisted, "but they don't work right on lifeforms that aren't entirely of Antarian derivation, like us. Remember the fuss when the Klaatu ambassador accidentally fell through an open access port, and at first nobody would believe his aides that he was down there because the computer insisted that it wasn't reading life signs? **I** was the one who went and troubleshooted the programming after that mess, and came up with the plan for what was necessary to realign the sensors properly, except that Township refused to pay for the project. Trust me, then great Bailiff, that I know whereof I speak. The more of the Doctor's alien friends that we can bring down into the tunnels with him, the harder it will be for the Genie to tell where they are down there - but it must be them alone, none of us."

Everybody was silent for a moment. Through Alex's mind ran the thought that Isabel and Michael's life signs might be closer to Antarian than Clapta had guessed - nobody suspected that they were really Antarian hybrids. But the Bailiff knew that their physiologies were similar to Antarian - that had been part of the evidence that he'd used to keep them in jail, hadn't it? Alex decided that he still had to keep his mouth shut about that part.

And the Doctor was going down a different mental track, it seemed. "Sounds like a plan to me," he decided. "Have Isabel and Michael freed at once and brought here." One of the aides looked over at the Bailiff, saw no immediate sign of a protest, and rushed off to follow the Doctor's orders. "And - Clapta, is it? Can you tell me how to find the way that I must go in these tunnels? That'll be tricky, I suspect, without being able to bring a native guide along."

"It is entirely _beside_ the point!" the Bailiff raged. "You - you do not have the authority to engage the system override, and the Genie will be able to take control of the hatch portals down in the tunnels. Even if your life signs can't be localized at all, there will surely be some evidence that someone is down there, and it will lock down the entire network."

The Doctor turned regretfully to the Bailiff. "Those are two good problems," he allowed, "but they have the same answer, as much as you might not want to hear it."

"Yes!" Maria cheered quietly, pumping one arm down by her side.

"No - not..." The Bailiff took a step back, stricken.

"I'm afraid so," the Doctor continued, his voice as kind and peaceful as he could make it. "I think that you'll have to give me my screwdriver back."

The Bailiff hemmed and hawed, but finally he reluctantly stepped over to an evidence locker and started to turn the safe dial on it. Just then, Michael and Isabel spotted Alex and Maria from opposite sides of the room, and there was much rushing together and hugging, even under the scary circumstances.

#

"Oh, what did they call that blue milk concoction last night in the clinic?" Rose muttered to herself. The Kaaltan waiter who had stopped by the 'patio' table to take their orders just looked blank and tapped his toes at her.

"Umm, I don't remember," Kyle admitted a bit sheepishly. "Actually, didn't you say that you didn't ask?"

"Maybe." Rose shook her head. "No, that was what it was made from - but maybe I didn't ask for a name either." She sighed and looked as pleadingly up as she could manage at the stone-faced waiter, and Kyle was actually surprised not to see him melt.

"We're not from around here, and we need to be careful to avoid accidental food poisoning," Kyle pointed out.

"From the same planet?" the waiter asked them in a bored tone, and Rose nodded with surprise. The waiter proceeded to pick up an empty glass with one hand, take Kyle's hand with the other, and suddenly Kyle felt a prick of pain without being sure what had caused it. And then, just a few seconds later, the waiter was carrying a slightly bloodsmeared glass away, and Kyle was wrapping a cloth napkin around the heel of his hand. "I'll be back in just a moment with a guaranteed safe menu for the two of you. Shouldn't be too much for you to work your way through," the waiter declared as he left.

"The hell?" Kyle muttered, and when he looked over towards Rose in the hopes of seeing some sympathy, he was annoyed to find that she was struggling to contain a laugh. "Come on, it's not funny!"

"Well, it's kind of funny," she said, "but if it helps I can kiss it and make it better." With somewhat bad grace Kyle extended his hand towards her, not bothering to unwrap the napkin. Rose considered the little pinprick type wound that had mostly stopped bleeding, and stood up, altering the angle that she was facing slightly, looking around the wide pedestrian corridor that the cafe patio had been carved out from with its simple fence.

...And a blast of red energy dashed her to the ground. "Rose? Rose!" Kyle exclaimed, jumping up from his own chair, hurring over to see what had happened to her.

#

"Okay, this is no fun," Maria groused as she crawled on her hands and knees down the dark corridor. It didn't help her mood to know that she was just along for the ride to be one more non-Antarian life sign signal to confuse the sensors, essentially. Everybody else had been given some kind of a job, but she was just along for the ride so that it would be all five of them. (Nobody had seriously suggested going to find Rose and Kyle, when they couldn't travel safely through the corridors of the township.)

And if she had to be here, couldn't she at least have been behind Michael, so that she could catch faint glimpses of his behind in the dim light when she looked ahead of her? As much as Alex might have appreciated her view of Isabel's bottom, it didn't do anything for Maria. But then, she did feel a bit safer with Michael guarding the rear of the procession, and Alex didn't have any better a view, certainly, having to follow behind as the Doctor led the way.

She nearly missed the first turning before Isabel hissed at her from a side passage that she'd not really noticed, and had to back up until she could make the sharp right-angle bend in her body. Then, there was the sound of a loud clunking from up ahead. "Okay, that's screwdriver one, hatches nothing," the Doctor's voice came faintly. "Not bad for us."

"Yeah, not bad," Maria muttered, and then jumped enough to hit her head on the roof of the tunnel. "Michael, Isabel! There's - there's a robot or something, coming up fast from beside us, from one of the other tunnels in that turn I just slid around. What do I do?"


	11. Chapter 11

"Maria, move ahead," Michael's voice came from behind her in the cramped robot access tunnels beneath the floors somewhere in Kaalto colony. (And probably above the ceilings of one level down, too, as if she needed to be reminded of the theoretical possibility of crashing through somebody's roof. Though, generally, the surfaces on every side of her seemed too solid and sturdy, not the reverse.) Maria scrambled forward, and bumped almost immediately into Isabel's feet and calves.

"Michael, I tried, but..." she started, but Michael's calm reply cut her off.

"_Everybody_, move ahead," he clarified.

"I'm going," the Doctor called back from the head of the line at nearly the same time. It was several seconds before Isabel moved sufficiently for Maria to have somewhere to crawl to again, but by then everybody seemed to have worked up to a pretty rapid scramble. She heard Michael moving behind her, and realized that Michael had managed the turn with incredible speed, and then seemed to be lagging behind slightly.

"Wait up for just a moment," he said. "I don't want to get lost back here.

"What's going on?" she asked him nervously.

"Trying make sure that the robot is pointed somewhere else than up our trail," he said. "It's hard to pick it up and move it with my powers, but - yeah, it's moving along now, good."

"Right, okay," Maria said, taking a deep breath, and resumed crawling, trying to make sure that she was more or less between Isabel and Michael.

The five of them carried on like that for what seemed like a long while, following the instructions that had been given them for navigating through the tunnels, and watching out for service robots that might be controlled by a crazy alien college student and his pet computer genie', and in any event could be very dangerous in the enclosed tunnels. Isabel had the opportunity to use Michael's trick of pushing robots back or pointing them in other directions a few times, from her spot in the middle of the procession, while the Doctor did his best not to move into a possible collision course, and when he had no other option, a little quick work with the sonic screwdriver would temporarily disable robotic circuitry. Alex repeated the turnings yet to take under his breath, just in case the Doctor lost track of his route with all of the hatches that he had to take care of.

"Doesn't it just figure that when I get let out of jail, it's to go through something like this," Isabel complained at one point. Michael chuckled to himself.

"But it makes the whole deal to be reunited again, doesn't it sweetie?" Alex teased his girl back. She couldn't quite bring herself to agree with that sentiment, but seemed to crawl with a bit of a lighthearted bounce in her elbows for a little while.

Soon enough, they were drawing near. After taking one last turn, the Doctor peered forward to the spot where they'd have to climb out of the tunnels - and mumbled under his breath angrily. "Should have expected that."

"What is it?" Isabel called up.

"There's a bot waiting right underneath the access point. Has to be a sentry posted by the Genie, against anyone who might try this route to shut it down. No bots on ordinary business would stay still down in these tunnels, for any reason. They'd be traffic hazards."

"Okay - can you use the screwdriver on it?" Alex asked.

"Yes, but we'd still need to get it out of the way, and - I've got a bad feeling. Just a second..." The Doctor scrambled carefully forward, and though nobody else could see what he was doing, (only Alex could see any trace of him,) they could all hear the hum of the sonic screwdriver in action one more time, and more muttering that might actually have been Gallifreyan cursing. (The TARDIS field didn't translate if that was it - perhaps it had a PG-13 filter on it.)

"What is it this time?" Isabel asked. "Alex, is he okay?"

"Yeah, umm, he's on his way back, and just a little out of breath," Alex reported. "Doctor?"

"Somehow the Genie managed to deadlock seal the robot," the Doctor muttered. "I wouldn't have thought it was possible. Guess we should be lucky that it didn't think of - well, never mind."

"Yeah," Michael called back up. "Just in case any robots around have sound pickups, we shouldn't give it any ideas." The possibilities were starting to sound ominous to Alex, though. If their enemies had only a few deadlock seals to use against the Doctor, the two most likely places to employ them were the robot standing guard, there - and the hatch above, that they had to find some way through. And was it possible that another trap had been laid here, with other robots encircling them and waiting to close in?

"There's no time to waste," Alex suddenly blurted out. "Umm - Michael, Isabel, do either of you want to try your luck?" He had actually named Isabel somewhat belatedly and because he was uncertain whether she'd want to get called on, feeling more confidence in Michael in a crisis situation like this.

"Yeah," Michael agreed. "No time for everyone to try to crawl out of my way. There's another cross tunnel to the right here, and things seem to be laid out on a fairly regular grid. I can get around to the bot from this side, yeah?"

"Yes," the Doctor called back. "After that right, take the next two lefts. But there isn't a junction at the access point, just a straight tunnel."

"I don't think that Michael can here you now," Maria said unhelpfully.

"A straight tunnel could work to our advantage," Alex said. "If that robot can't turn around in place, then Michael won't be facing the same end that you were. Do you figure it's as dangerous from both sides?"

"Couldn't say," the Doctor put in. "But unless Michael can blast it into molecules, then we won't be able to get to the access point from both sides - the robot, or what's left of it, will block one."

"Then let's all go around and follow him," Maria suggested. It was easier said than done, but everybody made the effort. Isabel was the next to lead the way, on the grounds that she would be the best to help Michael out if he still needed any backup against the robot when they got there.

He did - not that he'd been in much danger, but had been straining his powers to the limit just to keep the thing pushed back away from him, and hadn't been able to manage a truly disabling blow at the same time. Isabel was able to take over some of the push, peering around from behind Michael, and let him use the handprint of death strike. Together they pushed it back towards the way the Doctor had first come, and rushed forward to examine the access point.

"Quickly!" Alex exclaimed, though he knew that he wasn't really being helpful either. "I hear more bots closing in.

"Then come on," Isabel called back. The Doctor came first, then Maria, and Alex himself. Apparently whether or not the access hatch had been deadlock sealed, it had been vulnerable to Michael's talent for unlocking doors with his powers. Alex hadn't expected that - surely in a place like this where many people had such powers, doors would routinely use a technology that thwarted them - but he wasn't complaining now.

But now, just where he had expected a smooth completion to their mission, there was apparently one more complication. "Oh, no!" Maria was exclaiming. "Rose, and Kyle!"

Sure enough, an image of a Kaaltan sidewalk cafe off a pedestrain walkway was being shown on one of the flat walls of the room, a display that actually changed perspective as you moved, so that it nearly looked as if it was a window with the walkway beyond. Clearly Rose was lying on the ground, hurt, and Kyle was bending over her, worried, and calling for help.

"Oh, no," Michael muttered. "The Genie's got hostage."

"The Genie's bluffing," Doctor muttered. "And I'm not going to give it a chance to hurt anybody else." And with that, he dashed towards the lectern-style console, nearly digging his sonic screwdriver into it. There did seem to be a pained electronic sort of scream. "The memory chip the Bailiff gave you, Alex?" the Doctor asked. Alex rushed forward with it, and put it into the slot that the Doctor indicated.

After a few seconds, the image of the sidewalk cafe vanished. "Oh, no," Maria breathed.

"Oh, yes," the Doctor countered, turning back to her. "The Genie's trapped and powerless now. I guess it was holding that image open actively, so it vanished when its access here was revoked."

"But what about Rose?" Isabel asked, and then after a moment she thought of pulling out a communicator. The Doctor nodded at that, and accepted the device after Isabel punched a few buttons and held it out to him.

"Kyle, hello, how's... yes, of course, call the medical emergency line, of course. You should have no problems getting through now." He hung up again and turned to the others. "He wasn't able to use the communicator to call for help - our Genie must have been blocking it."

"But will Rose be okay?" Alex asked.

"We'll have to wait and see - but I think so. Neither the Genie nor the master had any reason to injure her fatally - just to try and distract me or use her as leverage against me. But their leverage is gone now." He looked around the little computer access chamber, which didn't have much aside from just enough room for the five of them and the lectern. Michael had closed the access hatch and was standing on it, to try and muffle the sounds of angry robots that could be heard a few moments ago. Presumably they were all remembering their old duties at this point.

"Can we get out of here?" Maria asked. She stepped towards the most likely door, but it didn't open when she pressed the contact, just started a little yellow light blinking. "Guess we don't have access to be in here - or get out."

"Well, it'll all get sorted out," the Doctor said, scrolling through the interface of the communicator himself. "There'll be some time taken with explanations, I don't doubt, but the Bailiff strikes me as an on the ball kind of man, when faced with a problem that's within his scope. He'll trace down the evil Genie, find out his true Master, and he won't forget what we did to save them - or that we were falsely accused." That seemed to satisfy him. "I'll get back into the TARDIS again tonight, and anything we still need to research won't be a problem."

"I hope so," Maria said, stepping over to Michael and hugging him. "We've been through so much already. I'm not sure that I'm up for Antar's past as soon as we go home and pick up Max and Liz."

"Oh, come on," Michael insisted. "This was just the pre-game. We can't stop now."

She shot him an unimpressed look. Isabel didn't seem that much more comfortable with the thought of their next trips, but as she ran her hand over the back of Alex's hand, all she muttered was, "Well, let's see how we all feel when we've had a bit of a chance to rest and relax."

#

"Here I am, good as new," Rose insisted as she nearly bounced into a waiting room, and threw her arms first around the Doctor, and then Kyle. (Kyle seemed a little disappointed about that order, but didn't actually voice a complaint.) "These Kaaltan healers do good work, once they get to you."

"Yeah, I know how that is," Kyle admitted. "So how much of the story do we need to catch you up on?"

"Umm - more than half, probably," Rose admitted. "I heard bits while I was waiting for them to be sure they'd got all the burn damage - something about a rogue Genie, that the Doctor and his friends had crawled through a dark maze to put back into confinement, and I sort of gathered that was the explanation for that murderer that you were being suspected of."

"Yeah, we just heard that they caught the Genie's master," Maria said, shuddering slightly. "And found some witnesses among the other college students who've testified about how much he despiised the poor boy that he killed. I just hope that whatever the Bailiff does to Xamev, he won't be able to get into my dreams again. Oooh."

"I think that he's got that part taken care of," Isabel admitted. "Must be one of the things that they've had to deal with before." She sighed. "I tried to pay a visit to Alex last night, and it just felt like he was never dreaming."

"Well, maybe I didn't get that much good sleep, honey," Alex pointed out. "It didn't feel like I had in the morning." Isabel shrugged.

"And the authorities are being very nice, probably trying to make up for the fact that they arrested us and accused the Doctor, and then we saved their asses," Michael said. "We've all been invited to another fancy dinner - just us and half a dozen of the biggest VIPs in the township. The Doctor didn't want to confirm that he'd make it until he was sure that you were okay."

"Okay, alright," Rose said, sitting down. "But back up, to this morning at least. They have Genies here?"

"Computer genies, sw- umm, sweetie," Kyle reminded her, taking her hand. Rose smiled sweetly at him and then shot a somewhat uncertain look over at the Doctor. "You knew about them, remember? Like the ones that Michael used to get the pages."

"Oh." Rose shook her head, trying to reconcile that little revelation. "But someone, what, someone reprogrammed a Genie to kill for him?"

"That's certainly what it looks like," the Doctor said soberly. "A dangerous combination of technology and complacency. I wonder of the Kaaltan Bailiffs will be able to figure out a way to prevent it from happening again - but that's their worry." He sighed. "And, more importantly than the dinner, we'll have an opportunity to access the College library computer again before we leave, to find out a bit more. Without using a genie, I suspect, but we've probably learned enough from our first try to track down some more references. And tomorrow, it's back to Roswell."

"But you didn't really tell Rose the whole story," Kyle pointed out. "Why don't you take it from the hallway, Alex, and what you guys found out there?"

#

"Is everything to your liking?" the Kaalto governor asked as her dinner guests began on the appetizer course.

"Yes, excellent, thank you very much," Maria assured her, bobbing her head in an excess of politeness.

"I'm so pleased to hear," the governor said. "I was so sorry to hear that last night one of you came down with a bad case of food poisoning from a beverage with Wolee stalk as one of its ingredients."

"Yes, ma'am, that was me," Alex said. "I'm feeling much better now."

"That's good," the governor said. "However, it would be fair to warn you that news of that incident has spawned some interesting rumors in my community. You see, we have a few Earthling expatriates and crossbreeds passing through here - that is, people with ancestry tracing back to a nearby industralized and nuclear-capable world, known as Earth, whose national governments have not mastered the technology for interstellar travel or established diplomatic relations with other worlds. Still, I hear that it is an interesting world, crowded with life and many cultures for its capacities. Have you heard of this Earth in your travels, Doctor?"

"Umm - why yes, I must admit that I am well familiar with it," the Doctor muttered after a surprised moment.

"Wait a second," Maria put in. "If these Earthlings don't have interstellar travel, how do you have any of their people here?"

"Spaceships from other races have been landing on Earth, undetected, for centuries," one of the other township officials put in with an alien chuckle. "Some take along hitchhikers, or slaves, or what have you. The question of 'what to do with the children of Earth' has been a matter of some debate across the Antar cluster, and even further afield."

"Right," Isabel said, nodding. "So, just what do these rumors concern themselves with? Just circulating the supposition that some or all of us are Earthling?"

"Not that alone," the governor said. "Have you ever heard of the Royal Four?"

Again a pause, and again the Doctor carefully began an answer. "Well, yes, just recently, in the histories we have accessed at your college," he admitted. "The old Liaret King of Antar - Sanren of Liaret - he had five children, and the eldest two, Princess Vilandra and Prince Zan, were fairly close in age. Zan married a girl named Ava, and Vilandra was betrothed to one of her brother's friends, Rath. The four of them became quite well known as a group to the common people, sort of unofficial mascots of the Liaretian dynasty, and also as competitors in some kind of sport or combat sompetion - I didn't really follow all of that part. When Sanren was assasinated, Zan succeeded him to the throne - typically patrilineal but I won't get distracted about that - and the other three became his closest of councillors, with Rath appointed as his Prime Minister and the High General of the Royal armies. And, well..."

"And when Kivar took power, the four of them were captured together, and executed together," Michael put in, when the Doctor hesitated. Alex coughed quietly. "Umm, and that's all that we know about them."

"Really?" The governor watched them all closely. "There is another part of the story, which was long secret, but has started to become well-known, if not univerally credited. A modern legend of the Antar sector, as it were - that a secret project initiated by Sanren's widow, the Queen Emeritus Alinda, who escaped from Kivar's forces herself, was somehow able to ressurect the Royal Four, and that they would come back to Antar when the time was right to overthrow the usurper and re-establish the old line. In this legend, it is said that the Royal Four were hidden on Earth, that Kivar's agents searched that world long for them, that eventually he found them, but could neither capture nor kill them, and now waits in a triply guarded castle for them to make their move."

"Wow," Kyle breathed immediately. "Quite a story, but I wouldn't believe much of it myself. There have been so many times I've heard that kind of prophecy propaganda used as a last ditch defense against a mightier enemy."

"Does the legend say that the Royal Four will return looking like humans?" Rose put in. "I assume that's why you brought it up. The people here are suggesting that some of us might be those long-dead Kings and Queens?"

"Tellings of the tale differ on details like that," the Governor agreed. "One that I have heard a Bard sing of related how the genes of the Royal Four were mixed with human blood, to bring them forth again as crossbreeds. The notion seems too fanciful to work in reality, but in any event... though I would discount such tales myself, the sad fact is that my Liege Lord, Larek of Rahlicx, is a believer. He was a close friend of Zan, in his youth, and recently has told many of the spirit journeys he made to New York and Roswell in the United States of America, how he met a boy named Max Evans who was created from Zan Liaret." She sighed. "Because of this, I have sent Larek a message telling him of your arrival, and my people's reactions to it."

This time the pause was the longest. Isabel felt the craziest notion to declare her own origin, begotton of Vilandra Liaret betrothed to the house of Selezir. But that impulse was fairly easy to squash down. They had all heard Michael's story about the crazy Kaaltan scientist who had broken him out of prison to run tests on him - now it seemed that even trashing the lab and letting the man go might have not been enough, that he might have learned something about Michael's genetic makeup and been using that to feed the rumors. Isabel had met Larek back in Roswell that one time, and sort of liked him, though the situation had been dire. But now, if they were going to leave him a message from two of the Royal Four, it could only be in some way that would not be detected until the TARDIS was well on its way back to Earth. They couldn't risk any more complications at that moment.

Finally Maria broke the silence. "What did - this Larek tell you?"

"That if the Royal Four were under my hospitality and wished to remain anonymous, I should respect that, and accord the retinue of a Time Lord every possible courtesy no matter who his Companions are or where they come from."

"Good advice," Rose pitched in. "Now, I think somebody said something about an entree course."

"Yes, certainly," the governor agreed. Soon, a dish was brought in that was roughly turkey-sized, but almost cube-shaped and apparently without bones - when portions of it were served out, it seemed to taste more than anything like spicy tuna. For a while, though the 'Royal Four' were not mentioned again, the officials present tried to draw their guests out on the exact nature of the research that had brought them on their errand. Most of these questions were left for the Doctor to answer, which he did pleasantly and vaguely, and managed eventually to bring the story around to some of his recent adventures in time and space, which he also kept relatively abstract, mentioning few connections with Earth and humans, although he did call attention to a few of them in an offhand 'by-the-way' manner.

Once the dinner was over, and the visitors had said goodbye to each other in the corridor, the Doctor was getting ready for a night's sleep in the TARDIS when Rose appeared in his doorway. "It's good to be back home, isn't it?" he told her brightly.

"Yes, I suppose," Rose agreed, though it did seem a bit funny her to that she thought of the TARDIS as home now, and not London. "There - well, there's something that I wanted to ask you about privately, about Antarians, and - well, the places that we've been, and the things that we've seen."

"Go ahead," the Doctor said, sitting down on the edge of his bed and gesturing towards a comfortable armchair in the corner of the room, which Rose took with a grateful smile. "I think that I have a notion what this is going to be about, but go on.

"Alright, let's see," Rose said, taking a breath. "As interstellar distances go, the Antarians really are quite close to Earth, aren't they?"

"Well, yes," the Doctor allowed. "Only eighty or ninety light years, which is miniscule compared to the size of the Galaxy, really."

"So are they the closest planets to us that are, you know, inhabited? By other intelligent life?" Rose pressed.

"Well, I'm not sure that it ever occured to me to work out the map of the neighborhood and measure the distances, but - I'd say not quite, but close. I happen to know of somebody off nearly in the opposite direction who'd be closer than Kaalto and the other nearby Antarian outposts, and a few others who are nearly the same direction as the Antar cluster - off perpendicularly, as it were. Mapping space gets complicated, you know, with three dimensions to consider."

"Four dimensions," Rose said, and the Doctor looked up in surprise at that. "We musn't forget time."

"No, I suppose not." The Doctor's eyes narrowed slightly. "Is time relevant to what you're working up to asking me about?"

"Of course it is," she said. "You've told me - and shown me a little - about the great and bountiful human empires, and times when the influence of earth's children is felt across galaxies. What happened to the Antarians, by that time in the future? Do you know anything about that?"

"A - a little," the Doctor admitted, sighing. "It's good that you asked me this in private, and I'd ask that you not repeat what I'm going to tell you - to anybody. Knowing too much about the future - about anybody's future, can be a terrible burden on your present, but I suspect that I wouldn't get far with refusing to tell you anything." Rose nodded. "Alright."

"After humans from Earth **do** invent interstellar spaceships of their own, they're thrown into natural rivalries with the Antarians and their other neighbors in this part of space - challenges that are economic, social, and political all rolled into one. Umm..." The Doctor paused in his lecture to gather a few thoughts, and probably to set others aside. "The Antarians had considerable advantages, between their established technological base, established alliances with other species, and their natural powers. But parts of their civilization were sliding into decadance, and the whole Antarian sphere had been weakened by internal wars." He met Rose's eyes. "I'm not clear on the details, but humanity became - culturally dominant. I don't think that the Antarians were opressed as such, but they lost a lot of their power and influence even on their homeworlds."

"And that's it, as much as you know?" Rose pressed. "Did they entirely lose their identity as a people?"

"Eventually - yes, I think so," the Doctor admitted. "Not until after the era of the fourth empire, at least, since I'm aware of a few prominent people around that time who still proudly proclaimed Antarian heritage, though they had lost their homeland by then." Rose whimpered softly at that prospect. "But even after the identity was gone, that was not the end of the legacy of the Antarian people." And now the Doctor smiled with a private joke. "Do you remember Lady Cassandra, and her claims to be the last true human?"

"Of course!" Rose shuddered in remembered distaste. "Not like I'm going to forget an experience like that!"

"And what I told you about the people of New Earth, of her time?" the Doctor pressed, his grin widening.

"Umm - that they had genetically altered themselves, or - or interbred with other species, so that they weren't perfectly human anymore..." Now Rose got up, and she looked back at the Doctor with an uncertain smile of her own. "So was one of the species that they got it on with..."

"When humanity was emerging into its adolescence among the stars," the Doctor declared with some gusto, "Antar was the hot older girl living right next door. You heard what the governor said about their being hybrids, even now. Suppose that humans set up a domed city just across the way from Kaalto, and invites the township over for mixers. You'd have intermarriages and cross-matings going through the roof. By the time of the establishment of New Earth - well, I'd be suprised if less than a quarter of the population have Antarian DNA in their cells, and not just a chromosome here and there. Though probably not that many of them remember it."

"I guess that does make me feel a bit better," Rose said uncertainly. "Alright - see you for breakfast tomorrow?"

"Yes," the Doctor agreed. "Let's go down to the dining hall, it'll be our last chance to eat there all together I think."

"Yeah." She got up and waved as she left the room.

#

"Okay, I'll ask the question that's on everybody's mind, Doctor," Michael said. This time, all seven of them were gathered in a research room on Kaalto campus - one that was two floors and five long hallways from the site of the murder attack, which made them all feel a little bit less jumpy. "What are you still looking for? We've got plenty of details on the Moon that Tess has taken over, and some workable ideas about visiting the Royal Palace back in King Sanren's time? Why are you still digging into the seaside resort alternative?"

"Just - still following a hunch," the Doctor said distractedly as he stared at the display screen, speed-reading through numerous personal accounts of the lives of the Liaretian royalty as they flashed through at a speed that no real human would have found comfortable or helpful, though Data the android would have found the pace still remarkably sluggish. A chorus of sighs, mostly feminine, greeted that vague remark, and with a long breath of his own, the Doctor flipped a contact to pause the playback and look up at his new friends. "Which I will not be indulging myself in for much longer, I promise. But - well, we're not on a particular schedule for our trip back to Earth today, and the TARDIS is packed and parked just down the hall, so we won't need to find our way back through the entire township. Why don't you talk more amongst yourselves while I keep reading, okay? Just give me - um, half an hour more, tops?"

"Hey, take all the time you need, Doctor," Alex said with a soft laugh. "It's not like we can leave without you or anything." Maria let out a wry chuckle at the not-too-funny joke.

"Okay, okay, a bit of other conversation to deflate the tension and help the time pass more quickly does seem like a half-decent idea," Kyle said, a bit too loudly. "And I've got a topic. Overall impressions, as our first visit to an alien world draws to a close?"

"I guess that I'm a bit relieved to see how - well, how normal Antarians can be, at least here," Isabel decided. "Sure, there's weird technology and different cultural standards, but you could say the same of - I don't know, Japan or somewhere else on Earth. Except that there's nowhere else on Earth where the technology level is as high as here, on an antiquated backwater of the Antarian sphere of influence, but that's not so big a deal really. The people here are just people - going to their jobs from 0100 to 2400, helping out strangers in trouble on the hallway, going out on dates and parties, trying to build a better life for their children, the whole fifteen yards." Michael snickered at that phrasing. "You know what I mean."

"Yeah, I guess that I do," Maria admitted. "I'm still a bit more weirded out by some things - like the whole experience of getting arrested for a crime that I didn't commit - and I wasn't even in lockup for as long as you guys. Maybe I'm not so much cut out for travel." She shot a so-sorry, puppy dog eyes look over at Michael, who just sort of shrugged in about as sweet and tender a way as he could manage.

"Does that mean that you're thinking of backing out on our other TARDIS vacation lines trips we have scheduled?" Alex asked. "Next stop, Antar's illustrious past."

"Umm - no, at least, not for that one," Maria said, a bit reluctantly. "If two out of two go badly, then I might beg out of the final showdown with Tess, I think. But this time, well, here the point is trying to learn more about where our alien friends came from, specifically. I'm up for that - and having Max and Liz around improves our odds, I think. Also your Dad, Kyle - though to be honest I'm hoping that Mom doesn't decide to tag along."

"Well, maybe this little tidbit will help you feel better about our trip, Maria," the Doctor announced from over on his own side of the room. "It certainly reassures me about our prospects."

"Why, what is it?" Mar Alex and Michael were the first to rush across and start reading the screen, which was once again paused on a single screenful of text, helpfully translated into English by the TARDIS field.

"What the - there's records of a Time Lord and his entourage visiting Sanren's court while they were 'holidaying' by Brok bay?" Michael summarized in disbelief.

"Not too much detail here, which is good I guess, I'd hate to hear too much about what we're about to do before we do it - assuming that this reference is about us," Alex said. "Arrived somewhat unexpectedly, greeted with much pomp and ceremony, asked a lot of questions, fairs and - and some kind of tournament held in our honor, and then left after a bit more than a week." He turned to the Doctor, and waved a hand near the screen to get his attention. "Do you think that - that this reference was here the first time we went to research, or when we arrived here? Or - or is it possible that the things that we've learned, and the choices we've narrowed down, actually changed the historical data, even before we leave to go to Antar?"

"Umm - hard to say, it could go either way," the Doctor admitted. "We're into temporal causality loop territory here - in my experience, some of them are fixed in the fabric of space and time, some are flexible, and most - like this one actually, are indeterminate, like that poor little cat of Erwin's. Since we didn't actually look at this reference, or have a Genie check it for us specifically, before Brok Bay had made our short list, it's completely impossible to determine what it read then. And, frankly, does it matter? Save your brain cells for the temporal paradoxes that matter to your life, is my advice. They have a tendency to generate headaches when considered at all."

"Here, here," Isabel chimed in. "So, we're going to the waterfront, then?"

"I think so, yes," the Doctor agreed, getting up.

"And what if it's actually about another time lord?" Kyle asked. "You said that you didn't want to run into an old friend on purpose - can you really take the risk that you'll do so by accident?"

"Hmm - I hadn't really considered that possibility, I have to admit," the Doctor Who muttered. "But, again, like the Cat, there's really know way to know for sure until we go and take a look, and I think that I'm up for that risk, rather than miss out on what looks like the best opportunity to pay off on this side of my bargain with Max and Liz and avoid other complications."

"Yeah, okay," Rose said. "Okay, last one back to the TARDIS is Dalek vermin." Despite that faint jibe, nobody really scrambled to get in, but they were all set and ready to go in five more minutes.

#

"Nobody's there," Maria complained after taking a peek out the TARDIS door. "Roswell, at least - but I'm so going to kick your ass if you landed us in 2004. We'd be back to square one entirely on college applications, after being heard from for so long - and poor Max and Liz, just waiting, waiting, waiting for us to come back..."

"Okay, let's not jump quite so far, yet," Alex pointed out. "First thing is, how do we find out the date and time here in Roswell?"

"I can get that for you in - umm, three minutes," the Doctor volunteered, fiddling with part of the TARDIS controls and thumping something. "Sorry about this."

"Two minutes," Michael countered. "There's a corner store just down the street. They always have newspapers on sale, and a clock up on the wall."

"Assuming it's open," Isabel put in.

"It's obviously midmorning, so of course the store will be..."

"I can make it twenty seconds," Alex realized, stepping out of the call box, getting a good dozen paces away, and bringing out his cell phone. It had been off for most of the trip, never adjusted by the Doctor to connect to anything but the local AT&T network, but with just a few button clicks and a short pause, it had gotten an adjusted time from those very same cell phone towers. "Everything is more or less alright," he called back to Maria, waiting behind the half-open TARDIS door. "We're ten minutes early for the rendezvous. They'll be coming along soon."

"You know, that would be a good feature for my cell phone," Rose told the Doctor absently. "Get it rigged up to show me the current local time, by whatever standards are currently in effect. Unless that's too much for you."

"Ooh, hey!" Isabel said, stepping out through the door herself, and pointing off across the corner of a small local park, where they could all see a familiar black Jeep coming down the cross-street. "I think that Max and Liz are going to be nearly ten minutes early too. Ohh, and they've seen us. Hi, guys!" She waved, and two even more familiar figures in the car waved back.

"Good," Michael decided. "We can move their stuff in, and be gone more quickly than we expected - oh, except that we'll still have to wait for your Dad at least, right Kyle? We promised that we wouldn't go without him, this time."

"My dad won't be too late, and he'll probably be travelling light," Kyle pointed out. "I'm up for trying to leave quickly, instead of being spotted hanging around a police call box by somebody who doesn't understand about - well, anything."

"I'm not sure that anybody really understand about the police call box," Maria put in. "Even Rose, and if the Doctor does then he isn't telling."

"Do we know what Max and Liz told their folks about where they're going to be all day?" Rose asked, ignoring the subject of police call boxes. "If they just leave the Jeep parked in this neighborhood all weekend, empty, then if somebody who recognizes it spots it..."

"It won't be suspicious enough to make many waves," Kyle breezed back, and Rose just shrugged. "Especially since this spot is still pretty close to Michael's apartment."

"Okay, yeah. They can say that they caught a lift with a friend - which is sort of the truth I suppose. Hi Liz!"

Sure enough, by this time the Jeep had parked, and Max and Liz had come out. Liz hardly acknowledged Rose's greeting - but that was just because she embraced Maria very hard as soon as she could. "Are you okay?" she said. "I had - like a weird premonition dream, it was almost a dreamwalk, except I knew that you couldn''t... but somehow I was sure that you were in trouble."

The Doctor looked curiously over at Isabel, who just sort of shrugged. "Umm, yeah, we're all fine," Maria said, "but I won't lie to you, there were parts of our stay on Kaalto that weren't fun. We've got the info we need, though, and hopefully the rest will be a cakewalk."

"Why doesn't that reassure me?" Max said. "Maybe you should tell us all about it, before we take off again." From the look on his face, it wasn't just a friendly suggestion. Michael looked around at the others uncertainly, but Maria was nodding, almost eager for a second opinion, and nobody else objected. "Okay, let's go upstairs and gather around. We could get some pizza again - it'll be nice to have a little taste of home in between so many meals of alien food, I won't deny."

"No, no pizza," Liz insisted. "I feel like I'm still full of cheese from the first night the Doctor and Rose came to town - was that really two nights ago?"

"Much more than that, for us," Alex said in a soft whine. "But maybe mexican would be okay."

"You guys all head up," Kyle said. "I'm not that hungry yet, and Dad might get worried if he waits for too long outside the police call box without anybody answering."

"Okay, but don't wait long," Rose said, shooting him a sweet smile before stepping next to the Doctor. Max and Liz exchanged a bemused look, as they headed off to Michael's apartment.


	12. Chapter 12

"Oh, hello Mister Valenti," Isabel said as the door to Michael's apartment opened, and let both the Valenti men in. (She hadn't been talking to Kyle though.) "What took you, we're almost finished the story - not in great and minute detail, I admit, but..."

"A shelving emergency ran long at a clients' house, if you can believe it," James Valenti said with a small smile. "I was a bit worried that I'd miss out on the scheduled trip time entirely, but Kyle said that Max put a hold on the flight."

"Yeah - I'm almost ready to say that we're ready to go, but we might as well finish the story," Max agreed, before taking a bite out of a burrito sitting on a paper plate. "So, the computer genie was frozen in its digital tracks, and then what?"

"Not too much," Isabel reported. "We waited a while for them to let us out of the vault with the override control in it, went first off to check on Rose and make sure that she'd be okay, and then everybody really just wanted to go back to our rooms and relax. The Doctor had a fawning call from the college Bailiff, assuring us that the guilty party was in custody and we didn't need to worry about any other 'inconveniences' - like prison." She sighed. "And then, dinner with the Township governor and a few of her trusted intimates, which was full of surprises."

"How so?" Max asked. The Doctor took up the tale here, concisely explaining what the Governor had told them about the rumors, how people in her colony and across the Antarian sphere saw the legends of the Royal Four, and the conversation that she had had with Larek on the matter over a long distance communicator.

"Okay, I see," Max said, after a long moment. "I understand your reasons for keeping silent, but - well, I do wish that you could have sent some sort of message to Larek."

"Who do you think you're talking to?" Michael put in. "Of course we left him a message - or at least, we tried to. The Doctor rigged it up with his sonic screwdriver..."

"Now, this time, I can't accept all the credit," the Doctor admitted. "I'm usually the man with the clever idea, but I wouldn't have thought of manipulating the circuits in that way if it hadn't been for your boy Alex's inspiration..."

"_What_ did you rig up?" Liz interrupted in a kind of pleased exasperation.

"A video message from Isabel and Michael, to be sent to the Governor's private line thirty minutes or so after the TARDIS was gone," Maria told her excitedly. "Admitting, or claiming, to be two of the Royal Four, and suggesting that Larek find some pretext to visit the moon Nunyes soon. The Doctor did his best figure out the timing of when we'd be arriving there, most likely, by the Antarian calendar, and we gave him that estimate and a margin of error."

"Okay, thanks," Max agreed. "I do feel better about the idea of him being around to back me up with Tess."

"And I'm going to be there," Liz said. "And to Antar in the past. I - well, I can understand why you guys might be somewhat hesitant about going back for another trip, but I'm not about to let anxiety stop me, and somehow I can tell that my alien soulmate feels the same way." Max smiled at the way she'd put that. "So, is there anything else to sort out before we head back?"

"Yeah, what about my mom?" Maria asked. "She said that she'd leave word with you if she couldn't be here, Mister Valenti. Does this mean that..."

"I'm afraid not, honey," Jim said fondly. "There's a part of her that wants to share this with you, I know, but - well, she's still scared of 'alien stuff', no matter how much of it she's come through with her attitude intact. Stepping into a Police-call-box time-and-spaceship to travel into the history of an alien planet - that's more than a little much for her." He chuckled ruefully. "I can hardly believe that I've signed myself up for it."

"You can still back out, you know," the Doctor offered, and then added: "Nice to meet you, sir, by the way. Heard many good things about you."

"Likewise, Doctor," Valenti said, offering his hand for a shake, and then tipping his hand once the other formality had been finished.

"Do you know if she's at our place?" Maria pressed. "I - well, I'm going to need to swing by there to drop off some things and grab a few other necessities."

"What kind of necessities didn't you already have packed?" Liz asked. "I know that you shouldn't need laundry service."

"Bathing suits, ones that I wouldn't be humiliated to death to show myself in," Maria told her. "This place that we're going, Brok Bay? Certain watersports are etiquette musts, and the traditional water costume for local females is - brief. I don't want to have to depend on loaners."

"Ooh, I hoped you hadn't found that little detail," Michael muttered in a stage whisper. Kyle chuckled.

"What, you really wanted everybody to see me in some itty bitty bikini?" Maria shot back, complete with a dangerously arched eyebrow.

"Not that so much, but I was really looking forward to seeing the look on your face when the lady-in-waiting showed it to you," Michael put in, making several of the kids break out in laughter.

"Hmm - I actually think that I'm looking forward to trying out a 'loaner,'" Isabel decided, and Alex twitched and swallowed hard. "Though maybe I should go back home and pick up my electric blue bikini. It could be a hit with the summer court. What do you girls think - Liz? Rose?"

There was a short pause. "I suppose that I've got an open mind," Liz admitted. "Makes some sense to pay one more visit to my dresser, time permitting, and pick up the most daring and least daring of the pool outfits I got in Florida last summer." She shot a smile over at Max, and he grinned back, remembering the vacation that they'd taken together for two weeks while school was out. "Maybe I've got room for one in-between as well. And as far as that goes, I might as well try on one of the traditional costumes when we get there." She shrugged nonchalantly.

"And I don't exactly have any opportunities to raid a closet of my own," Rose pointed out, "and don't really want to get into bathing suit shopping, so I guess I don't have many choices. Never been a big one for etiquette, though, and I may try to come up with some flimsy excuse to stay out of the surf."

"Alright, then, we've got a lot of driving around to do before we head out, then," Max summarized. "Let's get to it."

Before she left with Alex, who was going to drive her back to the Crashdown while Max took Isabel back home, Liz managed to pull Maria into Michael's bathroom for a momentary chat. "Did you happen to find out anything about the traditional bathing suit for guys?"

Maria grinned a wicked grin. "Don't even ask, we'll be seeing it soon enough. I don't think Michael even clued in to turnaround. See if you can find out whether Alex knows, without giving the whole thing away."

"Yeah, sure. He'll probably suggest swinging by his place for some of those baggy swim shorts of his," Liz pointed out. "Okay, see you in fifteen to thirty."

"Yep."

#

It was definitely approaching half an hour, but not any longer, before all ten of them were filing into the TARDIS with luggage for a second trip through space and time. Maria started playing tour guide immediately as the Doctor took his place at the controls and launched them into the Time Vortex. This time, it seemed to be a rougher trip, with a fair amount of turbulence, but they weren't pitched back and forth around the room for too long before things settled down again. Rose opened the door of the box and took a look outside before reporting back.

"Right on a beach full of kinduv peach-colored sand. Not a bad landing this time, Doc."

"Assuming that it's the _right_ peach beach," Michael pointed out. "Assuming that we're on the right planet, there are probably, what, tens of thousands of beaches on Antar, most of which aren't anywhere near Brok Bay."

"More like hundreds of thousands, if it's anything like Earth," Isabel corrected. "Or millions."

"Oh, ye of little faith," the Doctor scoffed. "I got us to the Kaalto township administration district, didn't I? Not to mention Roswell at the right place and time to find teenage aliens."

"Yeah, and anyway, standing here and arguing about if we're in the right place isn't going to tell us anything," Max pointed out. "We should head out, stay together and look for the Royal vacation palace that you mentioned - or any other nearby settlement that we find. Eveybody stick together. We don't need to worry about locals getting inside the TARDIS, right, Doctor?"

"No, it can generally take care of itself," the Doctor said. "Rose and I have keys."

"That'll do," Max said. "Any questions before we get going?"

"Yeah, umm, I have one," Maria said, pulling out the handle on her wheeled suitcase, and hoping that she wouldn't have to drag it across the sand. "Do we have to hide the fact that we're from Earth, like we did on Kaalto? I know that they won't know anything about a connection between the Royal Four and Earth, because the Royal Four's lives aren't even in danger yet, but..."

The Doctor shot a look at Max, who shrugged just slightly. "No, if you want my advice, we can be completely open about that," the Doctor said. "It seems to me that they're much less clear about Earth at this point in Antarian history, even though a few 'abducted' Earthling refugees are already in the Antarian sphere. I certainly don't see any way that it would complicate the reason that we're here and what you want to learn - not as much as vagueness and evasiveness would."

"And what if we accidentally say something about Earth that gives somebody the idea of sending the Royal Four there, years hence?" Alex asked.

"Then our past history fufills itself," Max said. "That's better than doing something that might change it, right?"

"More or less, yes," the Doctor agreed. "Sometimes the fabric of space-time is determined to tie itself in a minor knot. Best to just stay out of its way and hope that the knot is a neat and tidy one."

"Alright, anything else?" Liz asked. Nobody ventured anything much other than unclear mumbles, and there was much shuffling of feet. "Okay, let's head out!"

#

The first decision that faced them was which way to search along the beach. Michael immediately broke with Max's plan as far as suggesting that they split up and each side go ten minutes in a different way, then return to the TARDIS to compare notes. The balance of conventional wisdom was against him on that, though, especially the Doctor's tart comments about his companions 'always running off at the first opportunity,' and Alex even added that an arrangement like that was unlikely to save them much time compared to the entire company trying ten minutes first in what direction, and then going back to try the other if they didn't have much luck.

Max proposed that they proceed to the left, based on the orientation of the TARDIS' front door, which faced out towards a large bay with a faintly purplish tone to the water. To the right they could see a good long stretch of the seashore, with nothing in the way of structures except for what seemed to be very small cabins or shacks, more than a mile away. The other way, on the other hand, any such view was obstructed by a copse or stand of tall, otherworldly trees, less than a quarter of a mile distant, which encroached on the beach and made their way almost all the way down to the waterside.

As soon as the party from Earth had skirted the edge of those trees and could look past them, it seemed as if they'd chosen the right way to go. Sitting on a grassy hilltop just at the edge of the beach, half a mile further on, was a definitely impressive building. Something about it didn't immediately fit with what Liz had expected as a Royal beach pleasure palace - probably not the size, though it wasn't enormously large - bigger than any houses that she'd seen, even the McMansions up on Twin Diamond road, and probably spread out over more space than the UFO museum, but not bigger than the high school. It did remind her of some pictures that she'd seen of beach houses, in that the construction put most of the floors up above the ground, with empty spaces underneath where air could circulate, though as far as Liz could tell this wasn't a feature across the whole buidling, (unlike the beach houses) - somewhere in the center of the complex it seemed to be much more grounded. Neither was it a completely solid construction - there seemed to be mostly-enclosed courtyards that could be reached by narrow footpaths between walls and porches. Beyond this, Liz didn't stop and stare enough to let more impressions solidify.

There were a few people visible, out on the beach in front of the mansion - not a crowd, but... Liz had to count to get the number straight. Six, and out of them three could easily be guards of some type - staying back from their charges, but watching in all directions for possible trouble while trying to not make it obvious that they were looking. One of these had already noticed the group of strangers suddenly appearing on the edge of this stretch of beach, and was heading over at a brisk trot. Liz supposed that the other two would quickly notice that their colleague was moving out of position, and would be calling for backup just in case this situation turned out to be more than they could handle by themselves.

The other three Liz couldn't immediately see much of, on account of distance and that they were gathered in a tight knot, without moving around much or making much clear from their body language. One was a woman, somewhere between childhood and the mature adult years - in fact, her impression was that all three were in that range. The second was definitely a handsome young man, and she couldn't immediately guess even a gender for the third figure. They seemed to be sitting on some rough wooden benches, so engrossed in some kind of conversation that they weren't even noticing the hot sun and the water twenty paces away, never mind guards and visitors.

By this time, the first security man was nearly within easy shouting distance, and the Doctor suggested "Leave the talking to me at first, Max," in a low undertone, and then waved with exaggerated friendliness. It was hard to tell if the recipient of the wave was more relieved, surprised, or suspicious, but he slowed to a walk and called out, "This is a forbidden area without invitation. Do you have an explanation for yourselves?"

The Doctor paused, obviously thinking about the best way to reply to this unforgiving challenge. The kids crowded closer, until an irritated gesture conveyed the idea that he'd be more comfortable if they spread out further in a casual way. As they did this, the kids naturally stepped close to their significant others, and hands were held comfortingly. Jim, Kyle, and Rose all ended up in a somewhat looser clump to the right side of the Doctor. "I'm sorry, we didn't mean to intrude on private property," the Doctor replied, not shouting but projecting his voice loudly enough that the guard had to hear him clearly. "Just landed over on the other side of those trees, the next beach I suppose if you consider it a division, and we were trying to get our bearings." He paused just a moment. "But, if this area is forbidden because it is the summer residence of King Sanren of Antar - then you should know that we have come to this planet, and this region, to meet with him."

Now it was the guard who seemed uncertain of how to handle things. "An emissary for His Majesty? Surely you must know that many petitioners come to request a boon of the King - and that he cannot spend time with everybody who wishes to attend even the Great Court in Capital City. My lord has even less patience for those who attempt to pester him and his family here, where they come in an attempt to leave behind as many of the cares of ruling a planet as they possibly can."

"Yes, of course," the Doctor immediately answered. "But we are not ordinary petitioners."

"Because you come from another planet in a starship?" the guard shot back. "I suppose not, but that does not put you as far out of the everyday crowd as you might hope. What is your home world, by name?"

"This is it," Liz muttered very softly so that only Max could hear her. If what the Doctor had to say wasn't impressive enough, they could be in some trouble already.

"I am a Time Lord from the planet Gallifrey," the Doctor answered ringingly. "Travelling with me - are a distinguished group of residents of the planet Earth, sons and daughters of good families."

There was a momentary tableau, and then the guard inclined his head. "I - I did not realize, your lordship. You had better come with me to the household. My supervisor will - will insist on reviewing your credentials before you are brought to an audience with His Majesty, strictly a formality you understand, but..."

"That's quite alright, my good man," the Doctor added magnanimously. "I do understand about security precautions and the need to be careful about impostors, though I'm not quite sure what the protocol is for verifying a supposed Time Lord. Oh, and it looks as if we have some company already."

"What?" The guard actually turned around far enough that his back was facing most of the Roswellian party, and Liz realized that this was shoddy technique, in that if the line had been an intended distraction from the Doctor, he would have been vulnerable. However, the Doctor had been true enough in what he'd said. There were indeed more guards around the beach area now, a surprisingly quick mobilization, and the three people who she'd noticed sitting on the benches were on their way over to see what the commotion was about. Now that they were closer, Liz could see that the girl was petite and very pretty by any standards, though there was something about the structure of her face that might have attracted unkind comments back on Earth - as well as the rosy tint to her skin that wasn't exactly human. (Already Liz was starting to see the Antarians as just people and look past such small differences in their appearance.) She was wearing a kind of a halter bikini top, and a mid-thigh length skort. There was something about her that was familiar, but Liz couldn't immediately place it.

The taller young man had a friendly smile and an appealingly lean build on his bare upper body, and Liz wondered immediately if they were going to meet Prince Zan so soon and without any more buildup than this. The third person was also a boy, but younger and shorter, just on the younger side of puberty it seemed, but full of youthful high spirits. He was wearing a long-sleved but very thin white shirt that was apparently fastened up the back for no good reason that Liz could see, and something like cut-off shorts.

"You shouldn't be here, my lords... and my lady," the guard protested with a tone of voice that seemed a bit resigned - as if he suspected such warnings would be futile against these particular people. "These people, while claiming to be respectable visitors, are strangers and have not been thoroughly checked yet."

"But I'm bored, Nire," the girl complained, "and some of them look very interesting. Where are you from?"

There was an awkward pause, and more than one of the newcomers looked at the guard, Nire, as if expecting him to decide if they could answer or not. "If I let them answer, my Lady, do you all promise to go back to your own business until after Security has finished its job?"

The girl didn't hesitate noticeably before haggling with her advantage. "No - for that promise, I want to exchange full introductions with our strange visitors."

A soft sigh. "Then go ahead, Lady."

"I'll handle the introductions for my side," the Doctor put in. "I'm a Time Lord, and you can call me the Doctor. My companions are from the planet Earth - there's Lady Rose of London, and a crowd of the best people of Roswell - Patriarch James Valenti the Second, and his son Kyle - Isabel Evans and her brother Max, Maria De Luca, Alex Whitman, Michael Guerin, and Liz Parker."

"So pleased to meet you all," the taller boy said. "My name is Larek, and I'm a student of Government from Rahlicx, here on an official student exchange. And it is my profound pleasure to introduce the Lady Ava Dervensee, and Prince Tolecnal, of the house of Liaret."

"So - so nice to meet you all," Liz stammered, hoping that they wouldn't realize the true reason that she was tongue tied. (Well, to be honest, how could they?) "What - what has the three of you talking so intently on the beach today and not enjoying the water?" Nire shot her a mean look as some of the other guards drew near, but Liz didn't feel that affected - she was curious about this scene and didn't mind asking questions.

"We're planning a surprise for my big brother!" little Tolecnal exclaimed. "It's his names-day, the - the day after tomorrow."

"Oh, I see," Max said, with a small smile. "Crown Prince Zan, you mean?"

"Well, I've only got the one brother, don't I?" Tolecnal replied. "Or didn't you know that, since you know his name? Plenty of sisters, but just one brother."

"Well, I hope he has a great day," Michael said. At this point, one of the other guards showed up and started rushing the authorized guests and family members away from the strangers. Ava giggled and waved as she was practically dragged off.

"That was interesting," Liz breathed, hardly voicing the words and wondering if she was just saying them to herself or to Max as well. Each of the three of them had a particularly close tie to Prince Zan, or would - his only brother, his close friend who was also destined to become a planetary ruler, and the girl who he would someday marry. Liz found herself inordinately interested in that last connection - not jealous at all, not with Max right beside her and all that they'd been through together. But - were Zan and Ava in love at this point? Would that come later, or had the marriage only been one of political convenience? They wouldn't necessarily stay long enough to find all the answers, though hopefully the information they found out first hand might be combined with the archives that had been retrieved from Kaalto for a three-dimensional perspective on personal history, as it were.

"Come on, Liz," Max muttered in a much louder whisper, and she realized that they were the only two of the TARDIS party who hadn't started to make their way up to the house in a ragged line. Even Nire had gone, leading the way, and one other guard was gazing at them sourly, as if that was the only way to drive home the point that he was waiting for Liz to clue in and follow her friends.

"Oh, so sorry," she mumbled, and linked Max's arm with hers before heading along, because that always made her feel closer to him.

#

"This is actually starting to feel somewhat routine," Alex commented as he started unpacking a few things in the guest room that he would be sharing with Isabel. The room wasn't that similar to the spherical chamber that they had had in Kaalto township - in fact, in comparison, it seemed very much like his parent's room at home or the hotel room that he'd shared with Max when they'd both been on the West Roswell team that had gone to the State Academic Decathlon finals in Albuquerque.

There was a single bed, about what he'd think of as Queen size, and it was almost perfectly comfy for humans. They'd asked about the sleeping furniture in the guest room, and found out that some, but not all of them, were specially set up with non-specialized matresses, because on occasion the King **did** invite representatives from other species here for informal visits. The Doctor had asked for permission to 'convert' more mattresses with his sonic screwdriver, and this had been graciously granted. It was only at this point that Alex remembered that they'd completely forgot to convert any of the beds back to their original configuration when they packed up to leave Kaalto, and hadn't even informed anybody of their actions there. The next Antarians to get assigned to those rooms would probably be disappointed.

"Yeah, well, at least the view is better," Isabel answered, and Alex looked around a bit in surprise, because her voice hadn't come from within the room itself. For a brief moment, he'd thought that she was literally hanging out the window, and then he came to the natural conclusion.

"Ooh, do we have a balcony looking out on the beach?" he asked, stepping back around the bed, towards where a full-length window had obviously been slid aside like a door. He could just make out that there was a flat surface beyond, but not much about it.

"Not really, but better."

"Better?" he repeated quietly, and followed her out - then he saw what she meant. The space outside their patio door might be considered a balcony of a sort, but certainly not the kind of protruding balcony that he had expected, like the ones that are often seen outside hotel rooms. Instead, there was a large communal space, like an upper-floor deck or something of the sort, with several glass doors from different guest rooms all leading onto it, in the same way that the main doors of their rooms all led out onto the same corridor. "It must be built on the ceiling of something on the floor beneath us," he decided in a soft whisper.

"What was that, honey?" Isabel said, turning from the railing at the far end of the deck, her smile so brilliant that he almost felt as if he would need to shade his eyes and avoid looking directly at her.

"Um - nothing important," he insisted. Isabel's face brightened, and she swung her hand up vigorously into the air. Alex tentatively waved back, and then heard a soft swishing sound and felt slightly foolish enough. Sure enough, when he turned to look, one of the other doors was opening and Max was stepping out onto the deck. "Hey, man. Nice, huh?"

"Not bad," Max had to admit. "Is this space private just for us, do you think?"

"Well, let's see," Isabel said, stepping back towards them. The deck wasn't really that deep - maybe about twenty feet or so, so she covered the distance fairly quickly. "That'll be Michael and Maria, Alex and me, you and Liz, Kyle and his dad, the Doctor and Rose. We have one more door opening up on the deck that's unaccounted for - it might be empty, or there might be a few other VIP guests at court, I suppose. Oh, and there's something that looks a bit like an elevator door over that way," here she pointed off to Alex's left, "and a flight of stairs on the other side that lead down into one of the courtyards."

"Hmmm - that elevator - I think that the kitchen was in more or less that area, so it could be for food service, if we want to have breakfast up here," Max suggested. "And the stairs would make sense as an emergency escape. We could ask about our privacy, or just wait and see what happens."

"Of course, we shouldn't really be spending that much time in privacy amongst ourselves," Liz said, stepping through the door of her room out onto the deck. "That's not what we're here for, a vacation where we can spend a lot of time together? Like we don't do that practically every day back home? The point is to spend time with our hosts, get to know things about them."

"When she's right, she's right," Alex chimed in. "And nice costume, by the way." Liz was possibly the last of them getting to the deck because she had taken time to change clothes from what they'd arrived on Antar wearing - she was now dressed in a relatively modest black two-piece bathing suit, with a knee-length, slightly transparent maroon wraparound skirt added on top. Her hair was pulled up into a ponytail with a scrunchy, and she had put on flip-flop sandals, so the effect seemed nicely 'beach chic' to Alex. He didn't think that he was the only one who thought so - Max had grinned as he put an arm around Liz, and Isabel had narrowed her eyes just slightly and she was almost trying to edge past Alex to the doorway to their room, as if the transformation in Liz reminded her of a wardrobe change that she wanted to make herself.

"Oh - did they tell you about the bathroom situation, Liz?" Max said suddenly, as if he'd just remembered it himself.

"Well, yeah - each room shares a washing chamber with the one next door, pair-wise," Liz rattled off. "So we're stuck with the Valentis - not the most horrible situation that we could be in, I admit."

"Go on, try to make yourself more stunning if you like, honey," Alex whispered to Isabel, and kissed her on the cheek. "Not that I think you can improve on what's already perfection." She actually blushed slightly before slipping back through the doorway and drawing it closed. Max and Liz headed over to a small table surrounded by four seats, and Max waved Alex over. "Hi there, guys," he said as he sat down.

"Okay, so - what did you think of His Royal Majesty?" Max asked. All of them had been there in the brief audience with King Sanren and Queen Alinda, where the Royal couple had mostly exchanged pleasantries with the Doctor and assured them all that they were welcome to his hospitality for at least the twelve days that he and his court would be staying at Brok Bay. Alex had been a bit too jumpy to pay much attention, caught off balance more than he expected by a completely different alien setting than Kaalto, and really expecting that Zan, Vilandra, and Rath would be entering the semi-formal reception chamber at any moment. However, none of them had yet so much as seen a glimpse of Max, Isabel, and Michael's past-life selves.

"He seemed nice," Liz said after only a momentary pause to think. "Stern but with a soft center, and enough of a sense of humor about his role in the world. Of course, that's mostly just an instinctive reaction, so I may have to revise as we get to know more about him."

"Yeah, but for what it's worth, I think that I had the same impression," Alex said, and stretched. "Well, my lovely girlfriend had a point - we probably should be going back inside or anywhere but here, looking for people and information, instead of staying here."

"Maybe you feel ready for that," Max said with a little sigh. "I think that I need to acclimatize to the notion that I'm on Antar at last, and that Prince Zan is somewhere nearby, younger in Antarian terms than I am. This seems to be a good spot to sit and think about that kind of thing - not for too long, just to try and get used to it."

"Sounds good to me," Liz admitted, taking Max's hand. "You guys didn't immediately start looking up historical records as soon as you got to Kaalto, did you?"

"Umm - no," Alex admitted. "We stayed in Michael's room, watched videos, and got food delivered. Rose, the Doctor, and Kyle went to a banquet that the Governor invited them too, and he got an appointment there for us to ask permission to access the College archives. But..."

"Oh - do you remember the convention banquet in the UFO center?" Liz asked Max. "Last night?" And the two of them were off chatting about the ridiculous things that humans dressed up as aliens or alien hunters could manage to do.

Alex sighed and sprawled back into his chair. Despite what he'd said, he really didn't want to start wandering around this beach palace by himself. Maybe when Isabel was changed and ready.

By that time, actually, Michael, Maria, Jim Valenti, and the Doctor had all showed up on the deck. "So where are - um, Kyle, and Rose?" Max asked, looking up from Liz. Alex snickered. "What's so funny?"

"Well, I'm not sure how far it's gotten yet, but..." Alex started to explain, and then suddenly choked off the explanation when he realized that Mister Valenti might not necessarily approve of his son becoming involved with a girl who was several years older than him, and routinely travelled to alien planets and eras much stranger than anything that Roswellians routinely had to deal with. Well, Kyle might be upset that Alex had spilled that much, but if he and Rose had already snuck off together, then the father figure was probably bound to figure it out himself sooner or later. "Never mind."

"Yes, we've got bigger issues to settle," Maria said, jumping in with a natural diversion. "Now, even though talking with the Royal Four may be helpful, I think that there are certain pairings who we don't necessarily want to bring together too closely too soon. Not that it'd necesarily make the space-time continuum blow up, to have Max close to Zan or whatever, but - like with the New York kids, you might be similar enough to chafe personalities, and we certainly don't want them to realize the similarities. We're going to have to be creative with the dinner plans, considering that."

"Yeah," Max agreed. "Umm - we could try and contrive a split into two different dinners, say? Tell our hosts that some of the party would like a casual dinner upstairs, out here on the deck or some other space that's big enough for a handful of people, and - and invite Prince Zan along?"

"With the two of us hosting?" Isabel asked. Alex looked up, having not realized that she had emerged and was listening until just then, and smiled to see her. He'd sort of expected Isabel to actually change into a swimsuit, like Liz had, since there had been so much discussion of those types of outfits before they'd left, but instead her new selections featured tan shorts, and a thin white blouse over a rose-pink halter. "Michael and I, I mean?"

"Yeah, that would follow," Liz agreed. "We can certainly ask. I'm not quite sure what the protocol and etiquette is for a situation like this, but I think that being under the protection of a Time Lord should help us out of some gaffes."

"Yes, but don't try to push that one too far," Michael warned.

"I think that with your example, all of us will be more cautious," Max said. "Okay, all three of us who weren't at Kaalto should probably go down for the big dinner in the main hall, along with enough friends to help us navigate the food and table manners. Those who stay for a meal up here will have to know what to ask the kitchen staff to deliver I suppose."

"Yes. I think I'll remain with the upstairs group," the Doctor decided. "Maria? Can you help Max and Liz, and Mister Valenti out?"

Maria turned to Michael, who just shrugged and gave her a big hug. "We'll be seeing enough of each other in the days to come," he promised. "This makes sense for tonight. I'll see you again after the feasting, and the songs or storytelling or whatever they have for after-dinner entertainment here."

"I guess I should probably go downstairs too," Alex said, looking around.

"Yeah, I think that'd be okay," Isabel told him. "So if Zan comes alone, we'll have a cozy dinner party of four, that's not bad."

"What if he wants to bring Vilandra or Rath with him?" the Doctor suddenly pointed out. "It might not be the best idea to tell him no."

"Then we can adjust our own choices," Michael decided. "Don't tell him that we'll be there, first off - just you and some of your friends, and see what he says?"

"Alright, I guess I'd better go and find someone that I can deliver the invitation to," the Doctor said, standing up, "or ideally somebody who can take me directly to Zan so that he can hear it firsthand."

"Actually, I'll come along," Isabel decided. "Not to say that I'm with the invite, specifically, but - as much as you may know about aliens in general, Doctor, we've got a bit more experience with the Antarian psyche. I might be able to head off a problem."

"I suppose," the Doctor agreed. "In the meantime, somebody could start with preparations for the kitchen."

"Sure, I'll handle it," Michael said.

"We both can," Maria added.

"And maybe we should go looking for some pre-dinner conversation," Liz said. "But we'll come back to check in before everything is arranged, or try to."

"Yeah," Max agreed. "Communication and co-ordination might become a problem here. Our cell phones don't work - what about those alien ones that you guys got on Kaalto?"

"No compatible signal in this area," the Doctor informed him. "Unfortunately. We might be able to find out if they have something similar around the palace."

"Yeah," Alex agreed. "Lots to figure out." He stood up. "Might as well get to it."

#

"Are you sure that it's a good idea to be wandering around this place by ourselves?" Kyle asked a bit nervously.

"Oh, come on," Rose insisted as they wandered down a wide spiral ramp. "It's a perfectly safe palace - I think that I've seen enough to be able to tell by now. Oh, hello, nice to meet you." They both stopped at the same time as a pretty girl wearing a shiny, flowing dress that went nearly down to drag on the floor. Three or four nervous smiles were exchanged.

"Hello - who are you?" the girl said after a moment. "I heard something about visitors landing on the next beach over, but - umm, well, not much more than that I guess."

"Umm - I'm Kyle, and my friend's name is Rose," Kyle said. "We're from Earth - have you ever heard of it?"

"Earth? Uh - I'm not sure," she muttered, and Kyle couldn't tell if she was just hedging to be polite. "But welcome to the summer palace, I suppose. I'm Vilandra Liaret, daughter of Sanren and Alinda."

"Ohh... pleased to meet you, your Highness," Kyle managed to say, bowing slightly, while all the things that the other kids had told him about Isabel's past-life self ran through his mind. Had she really been a traitor, and if so, was that true at the moment, or would it not start for a while yet?

"Likewise, I'm sure," she said, and started to proceed past them.

"Umm - I'm sorry to impose, but are you planning to do anything that we could accompany you for?" Rose said. "We're new here, just trying to settle in, and - well, I'd like to get to know you, Vilandra. Or - or 'your Highness', whatever you prefer I call you."

Vilandra turned around and stared at her, and then the first traces of a warm smile started to tug at the edges of her mouth. "Umm - I was just intending to spend a bit of time with - with my friend." She flushed a paler shade of pink than normal, (which ironically was more like a human's ordinary skin tone would be than her appearance moments before.) "Not doing anything that we'd be comfortable having new friends around for. But..."

"No, it's okay, if we'd be imposing..."

"Well, I suddenly have this other idea that sounds like a lot of fun too, in its way," Vilandra told them, stepping near. "You're completely new around here, right? Never been to this province before?"

"Hey, until today, we'd never even been to Antar before," Kyle said, honestly enough.

"Then you've probably never even ridden in a fin-car, have you?" Vilandra said, and both Rose and Kyle had to shake their heads. "Okay, we'll take you for a ride, across the stalky plains and show you the old Square of Stones. We can grab some food in the kitchens before we go, and not be back until well after dark. You both willing?"

Kyle's eyes glinted, and he felt up for the challenge. Rose didn't seem so sure, but he took her hand and squeezed slightly, and after a second she squeezed back once. "I think I have an idea what's good for a picnic, and they pointed out the vehicle garage on the way in. You go and get Rath and tell him the plan, and meet us there?"

"Sure, just a - wait a second, how did you know I was talking about Rath?" Vilandra asked.

"He's just a good guesser," Rose told her with a giggle, before they headed on in the same directions that they'd been going before they met, but now with a common goal in mind.


	13. Chapter 13

"Okay, I guess that leaves just the two of us to enjoy the evening together, Alex," Jim Valenti said, after Michael and Maria had left through the door into their room. "Unless you're going to invent some errand to go off on too."

"No, I'm okay right here, keeping you company, Mister V," Alex drawled back. "Figured that it'd help to have a friendly face nearby, so that you don't freak out or anything."

"Actually, yeah it does," Jim admitted. "It's not that strange to be sitting here on an alien planet, though it probably should be - but frankly I've been expecting something like that to happen since I started to learn more about alien politics, that eventually I'd get sucked into it enough that I'd find myself in the middle of something really unearthly. But the idea that we've also gone back in time - I didn't even realize that aliens could do that until a few days ago."

"Yeah, well, I only heard about Max and Future Liz a few hours before you did," Alex shot back. "Though I can understand about her wanting to play it close to the vest."

"But still," Jim muttered, and Alex looked up at him in surprise. "I mean, the last thing that I want to do is reopen old wounds, but most of the gang had heard, one way or another, before the Doctor came to town."

"Yeah, yeah, I know," Alex agreed, actually laughing at it. "I'm always one of the last to know - but I guess I've made my peace with that, as long as they include me once it does make sense to start telling people what's going on. Kyle hadn't been told either, and nobody really told Michael, he just happened to find out while making out with Maria. That's the way it goes."

"Well - again, forgive me if I'm asking about things that are none of my business, but do you ever - ever find things out from Isabel, that way?" Jim asked.

"Well, occasionally, not very often. Neither has Maria, actually. We're not entirely sure if that's the fault of our partners, not opening up, or if humans aren't as good at receiving as hybrids are. Max and Liz seem to have something much more like a two-way street when it comes to flashes. It is what it is."

"Okay." There was a short pause. "Speaking of receiving - do you hear something, really faint? Like a chime or a bell?"

"Hmm? No." Another beat. "Okay, yeah I heard it that time. Coming from inside one of the rooms, I think."

"Oh!" Valenti suddenly charged up onto his feet, passing by the patio doorways one by one, moving fairly quietly when he did, and pausing in utter stillness every two steps or so - outside each door and between each pair of doors. Alex tried to ask just what he was doing, but got clearly shhed, and soon the answer occured to him - the lawman was listening to see which room the sound was coming from. Outside the room that Isabel and Alex had moved into, he turned back to Alex and gestured him over. "It's for you - a doorbell I think, and you probably shouldn't keep your guest waiting any longer."

"Oh, right!" Alex exclaimed, and scrambled to his feet himself, stepping across the threshold of the patio door, which had been left open since the air outside was so fresh and pleasant, and pressed his thumb against the hallway door. After a moment, it slid open to reveal a young Antarian man about his own age or a little younger, and not one of the castle residents that they had met before. "Greetings, may I help you?" he asked, and the caller shook his head slightly, seeming slightly surprised at that response. Unsure how else to respond without a clue to the identity of his guest, Alex shot an instant look at Mister Valenti, (who seemed also somewhat bemused,) and added, "Would you like to come inside, sir? Alex Whitman, at your service."

"Umm, yes please - we can all go out to the balcony, if that pleases you," the young Antarian said, and Alex turned off to lead the way back outside. only to freeze in his tracks when Valenti made a kind of gulpy swallowing sound, as if he had just figured out that Alex had done something wrong. Totally nervous now, Alex turned back around to face the new guy, who had just stepped through the hallway door and let it slide closed behind him. But Alex still had some momentum in the direction of the balcony, and half-tripped backwards over the little ridge that guided the sliding door, which stood up about an inch from the floor.

"It's alright," the Antarian said, smiling in what was probably a reassuring way. "And yes, to answer your question, I hope that you can help me. My name is Zan Liaret, and I believe that one of your friends was looking for me, Alex."

"Your highness!" Alex blurted out, suddenly realizing why Jim had been so stricken - it was a horrible breach of etiquette with Earth royalty to turn your backs on them, unless given very explicit permission - or at least that had been true in the heydey of the great European royal families, Alex remembered. Was there a similar tradition here? Very carefully, Alex took a step backwards over the door ridge. "It - it's a great honor to have you visiting us..." He broke off, wondering if he should try some kind of a deep bow. Probably he'd been starting to flex his waist a little in preparation.

"Alex, I'm good," Zan repeated firmly with a faintly dramatic gesture. "In fact, I much prefer to avoid the bowing and scraping and the constant references to great honors, especially when I'm here at Brok Bay. I admit that I was a little - um, surprised that you didn't immediately start that routine when you first saw me, until I realized that you didn't even recognize me as a Prince. But come on - you were doing all the right things - you were still being respectful and polite and all, just not..." He broke off, apparently not sure how to finish that sentence.

"Not overdoing it," Alex filled in with a smile.

"Exactly, that's perfect. Almost poetic," Zan mused, and Alex had to wonder what Antarian turn of phrase that fairly ordinary English word had been translated into.

"Well, it's nice to meet you, Zan, and this is Jim Valenti," Alex said, waving at his older friend, and as Zan nodded in princely fashion, Alex quickly backed the rest of the way out to the balcony and stood next to a chair, still facing back towards the room.

Zan made a sort of a barking laugh sound. "Nice to meet you, Jim - but I see what you did there, Alex." He strode out to the chairs on the balcony. "And it seems I'm going to have to force the issue once, and see if you get the point. I insist that you take your seat first."

With a little shrug, Alex sat down, and Zan waited until Jim had wandered out and reclaimed his original seat before seating himself. "So, now that we're finished with that nonsense for now," the prince continued, "can we get to the matter that brings me here?"

"Umm, yes, certainly, but just let me catch up for a moment," Jim said. "You got a message that - I guess that Isabel and the Doctor wanted to talk to you, but because they were looking for you all over the palace themselves, you couldn't find them directly, so you came up here to see us?"

Zan paused thoughtfully for a moment. "I suppose that may be what it amounts to. I didn't realize that they were in search of me directly - usually in a situation like this, if you tell the help that you want to meet with so-and-so, you also give a location for a rendezvous, to avoid these kind of problems. When there wasn't a destination included with the message I thought it was implied that I should go to one of their rooms - and you answered at the door that I was told was Isabel's, Alex."

"Yeah, we're both in there," Alex explained. "And the protocol that you explained makes a lot of sense, but I guess it's something that we're not used to."

"Oh." Zan's face fell. "So do we have to wait for them to return in their supposed failure to find me, or until someone helpfully explains that I was headed here?"

"We could send a message to them through the same network, couldn't we?" Jim suggested thoughtfully. "In the meantime, I think that we can handle their business on their behalf, right Alex?" Alex nodded a bit doubtfully. "The Time Lord was wondering if you could join him and a few of our friends - well, up here for dinner, actually. A more casual affair than the big dinner downstairs with your parents and friends, I think."

"Hmm - an interesting offer," Zan said, mulling it over just briefly. "Am I permitted to invite a few friends along with me?" His tone was softly teasing.

"Like we could stop you, your highness?" Alex shot back. "Umm, who were you thinking of?"

"Is there somebody that you don't want me to be thinking of?" Zan asked in his own turn, his blue-black eyes suddenly penetrating.

"Not that we don't want you to... umm, but I know that the Doctor was curious about if you'd want to bring - well, your eldest sister, or - or Rath. If you do, then - well, then his own guest list might have to be adjusted," Jim blurted out, and immediately looked annoyed with himself for having mentioned that, "which is really a very long story."

"Indeed," Zan said, nodding. "I do love long stories. But - no, I wasn't thinking of Vilandra's company or Rath's - they can enjoy the hospitality of downstairs if they please. But - but there is a certain young lady that I think I'd like to bring along for a casual dinner with fascinating visitors from faraway places."

"You mean Ava?" Alex asked, and winced slightly in his turn as Zan turned a shocked look on him. "We, umm, well, we met her on our way in, and - umm..."

"Yeah, that's her," Zan admitted, and shook his head slightly and sighed. "I really like her, ever since I first met her, at Dimaras Rock. And Ava - well, she's always happy to spend time with me or anything, but - well, I keep watching for a sign that she really likes Zan, and isn't just humoring the Crown Prince."

"Umm, yeah, it can be hard to tell that kind of thing, I know," Alex admitted. "And your royal status - must just make it harder."

"Maybe she's just shy," Jim put in, and Alex shot him a surprised look. "Have you made it clear to Ava that you - well, that she's very special to you, not just a passing fancy?"

"I - well, I've kind of tried," Zan said slowly. "It's hard to find the right words to say that kind of thing for the first time, and not have them sound foolish." He looked around. "It seems strange that I'm burdening you with these deep concerns about my personal life when we've only just met."

"No, that's okay," Alex said, something deep inside him thawing at Zan's all too relatable teen angst. He had some legitimate axes to grind against Tess, but Ava wasn't Tess, any more than Zan was Max, and just because Max and Tess didn't belong together didn't mean that Zan and Ava shouldn't take what pleasures they could before tragedy cut their lives short. (And of course, he couldn't risk changing the course of their lives anyway.) "So, what is Ava doing up here at Brok Bay, if the two of you aren't..."

"Well, we are kind of paired together already, but it's complicated," Zan explained. "I told you that I've asked her to - to do things together, get to know each other, and she's gone along with that. My parents - well, they can tell that I'm interested in making something more of my friendship with her, so that's why they invited her out here to spend time with us. Father's had Ava's family checked out, and Mom keeps saying that sixteen isn't too young to be thinking about a Royal Wedding for." He stretched again, not really noticing the impact that his words were having. "So when are we all sitting down to dinner?"

"Umm - well, the plan was actually that we were going to be going downstairs," Alex said. "But maybe we can reshuffle things somewhat."

"I'd like that," Zan said. "But I don't mean to be any trouble, really. Have dinner wherever you like. We can talk more tomorrow."

"Why don't the two of you keep talking about your lady friends," Jim said, with a smile. "I'll find a servant to find, to let our friends know that they can wander back here when they're ready."

"Okay," Zan said, and focused a very penetrating gaze on Alex. "So, is Isabel your lady, if you're staying in the same room together?" Surprised, Alex could only nod, and then Zan was speaking again. "Are you - married, betrothed? Do they even have conventions like that on Earth?"

Alex had to laugh. "Yes, we do have marriage, and - well, not betrothals commonly, at least not around the place where I live on Earth. There's 'engagements,' which is slightly more informal I guess - the man asks a woman to marry him, often offering her a valuable ring as a token of the promise at the same time, and they tell their friends and family, and start to make plans for the wedding."

"Oh." Zan considered this. "The friends and family aren't consulted beforehand?"

"Oh - that depends. Before 'popping the question' - asking the woman, a man will often ask his family, his friends, for advice - and may ask her friends as well, usually swearing them to keep the secret until the moment that he asks. Sometimes he'd ask her friends for their help in selecting a ring that she'd like, if he isn't sure about picking them out himself. And there's a lot of old traditions about asking the father for permission before you pop the question, but I'm not going to get into all of that." Alex took a deep breath. "To answer your more specific question, no, Isabel and I aren't even engaged. We're both in high school - that's the later stage of public schooling in our homeland, though the later teen years of adolescence more or less. It generally isn't common for young people to get engaged while they're still in school, because when they marry they're expected to have a source of income to support themselves with."

"Right, okay," Zan said, nodding. "I think that part is mostly the same here on Antar, if you don't happen to be..."

"...The prince," Alex finished in unison with him. "But Isabel and I are an established couple, and I love her very much. We don't share a bedroom back home, but this trip is something like a holiday, and our chaperones aren't being particularly picky, so why not take the chance to spend some quality time together?"

"No reason that I can see," Zan agreed. "I wish I got chances like that - though I guess Ava wouldn't be too receptive if I suggested something like that out of the blue."

"Yeah, you have to work up to it," Alex admitted.

"So - tell me, what was the first time that you realized that Isabel was that somebody special for you?" Zan asked him. "I've asked Vilandra about this kind of thing, but she's never helpful."

Alex blinked, momentarily overwhelmed by that contrast of Isabel and Vilandra in adjacent sentences - then decided to let Vilandra fall back out of his mind and concentrate on the question about Isabel. "Umm, I guess that was on a camping trip - a big group of us from school, students and parents, and Isabel - well, she didn't really want to be there. But I was sitting near her, out in the woods together as the night closed in, and started watching the stars. She knew more about them than I did, and pointed out all kinds of constellations and even another galaxy or something, I think." Alex looked up at the sky, but it wasn't dark yet, though Antar's reddish sun was starting to dip close to the bay. "It doesn't sound completely amazing or anything, but I guess that was when I really knew that I was falling in love."

Zan nodded contentedly at that. "Maybe - maybe it doesn't need to sound completely amazing to anybody else."

#

"Whoo, yeah-hah!" Kyle exclaimed as Rath turned the vehicle called a 'fin-car' into a hard left turn, and then twisted back to the right and stamped on a pedal to accelerate and resume the speed that had been lost in the showy maneuver. "I thought my car back home was a sweet ride, but - is it hard to learn how to drive one of these things?"

Rath just let out a booming chuckle that faded away quickly as the wind blew past them. Vilandra made a sound that was much more like a snort. "No, it's not hard," she said, "but Rath **never** lets anybody else work the controls of his fin-car. It gets really annoying sometimes, how persistent he is about that."

"What, never?" Rose asked curiously. "Have you tried being, ermm, very persuasive about it?"

"I think she's tried just about every persuasive trick she knows," Rath said, while Vilandra sat back in her seat and looked nettled. "What can I say, she's my baby?" He let one hand stray from the steering controls for just a moment to stroke the side door contentedly. "Maybe for a special occasion I'll let V give her a spin."

"Ahh, I see," Rose said, nodding. Kyle was looking somewhat perplexed and disappointed, but Rose thought she knew what was going on. She'd known guys like this Rath back at home - stubborn men who just dug in their heels harder no matter how hard you teased or wheedled them, if they really cared about something. Vilandra was going to have her hands full with this Antarian fool - but maybe he was worth the effort. Even if they only had a few years before...

She shut a mental door on that line of thought, not liking where it would lead her to.

It was only a few minutes later that Rath fishtailed to a stop, at the other end of a flat expanse from the Brok Bay palace - he hadn't been driving the fin-car in a straight line the whole way, but joyriding hither and yon around the area, which must have been nearly five miles across. Now, they were more or less parked next to a monolith that reminded her somewhat of her one trip to see Stonehenge - (which had been courtesy of the Doctor, not long after construction had finished on the second circle,) but whatever culture had arranged this monument clearly had different geometric preferences than the Stonehengians.

"Is it okay if we go and take a closer look?" Kyle asked, getting up out of his seat and running around to open Rose's door, which was a sweet touch.

"Well, sure," Vilandra said. "Why wouldn't it be, and why else would we have brought you here?"

"It's hard to tell with stuff like this," Rose said. "People often have very particular rules about things like this."

"Oh, right," Rath said. "I keep forgetting that you don't know about local stuff. There's no particular taboos or proscriptions, other than damaging the monument - but it's probably not smart to touch it if you haven't been trained to handle energy discharges. They're not usually reactive like that, but you can never really tell when something's up with a particular part of a particular cube - until it's too late."

"Yeah," Vilandra said. "Other than that, go nuts, explore as much as you can."

"Alright," Rose said, taking Kyle's hand in the excitement of this excursion. 'Cube' was definitely an apt description - though the cubes were obviously not perfectly regular, not anymore at least, they had obviously been constructed with that objective in mind - very flat surfaces, right-angled edges, perfect corners, and the dimensions were all very close to identical except for the obviously intentional difference between large and small cubes - which surprised Rose more than anything, as she approached the nearest one. Each cube seemed to be fashioned of very heavy stone - but if they had been made as long ago as they looked to be, wouldn't the stone have sunk into the soft ground? And if these were just the projections above ground of much longer stone slabs, then how was the height of the portion that poked above the surface controlled so well? Did the level of the soil never vary in this area?

After a moment, almost as if the Doctor was prompting Rose inside her head, she realized that she was making an assumption. "How - how old are the cubes?" she asked. If they had been fashioned and placed here recently, then...

"Something like two and a half thousand years," Vilandra said, from not far behind her. Okay, so that wasn't as old as Stonehenge, if Rose had her dates right, but old enough to not give her an easy out with her questions. She decided not to worry about puzzling it out just at that moment. Kyle seemed to be appreciating the cubes for what they seemed to be, and not asking any big questions about the why and how of them, so she should be able to match his attitude.

The largest cubes were something like eight feet high and wide, dark gray with brown tints, and arranged in a square formation, with perhaps fifty yards between the nearest of them. As they walked around one stone cube, Rose saw that there was another aspect of the monolith within that great square, made up of smaller cubes, less than three feet on a side. At first she couldn't make out any pattern to those smaller rocks, and then Rose thought that they were laid out in an octogon. Finally, as Rath took the lead and brought them to the center of the outer square, Rose worked out enough to realize that the smaller stones, too, were meant to be a smaller square with the same midpoint - but the smaller square wasn't marked out at the corners, but with two stones along each of its sides. She had been 'cutting off' the unmarked corners in her mind, drawing the angled line between stone markers, and that had turned the square into an octagon.

"This is a special place for us," Vilandra volunteered, while Rath slowly turned around to gaze at each of the stones in turn, looking like the master of all he surveyed. "And my little brother Zan, and Zan's friend Ava."

"Why is that so?" Rose asked. Kyle had an odd look on his face, and she locked her eyes with his, but he shook his head slightly. She didn't even know what unspoken question he thought he was saying 'no' to.

"Well, it's the foursquare," Rath explained, as if that should make everything obvious. Kyle blinked, and Rose shook her own head at Rath. "You don't know that we do an exhibition foursquare?"

"I - I don't even know what that would mean," Rose told him. "Though I'd like to hear about it."

"No idea at all what foursquare means?" Rath repeated, as if stunned by that concept. "Kyle, what about you?"

"Umm, not really, Rath," Kyle said. "Unless we're talking about a game involving bouncing balls on a hard court that's divided into four square sections. Or - or some kind of a reference to a group made up of two romantic couples, but I don't even really understand that one too well myself."

"I - I see," Vilandra said. "Well, let's back up. You know about Antarian's inherent powers, right?"

"A little," Rose said, more brightly because she actually did understand that part, she felt. "The Doctor found some old poems and other references. You can change the molecular structure of things, and - and move objects with your thoughts, and..."

"And some of you can heal or change what people think they see and hear, or go..." Kyle broke off awkwardly. "There are a lot of specialties, right?"

"Yes, both in terms of innate talent and practice," Vilandra agreed, smiling. "And we can connect to other people, share thoughts or energy - and work together towards a goal that just one person could never manage alone." Rose nodded. "Just about inevitably, these abilities have been used for the sake of combat and warfare for hundreds and even thousands of years - maybe as long as we've had them."

"Okay," Kyle said. "I think I follow all of that, so where does this foursquare fit in?" Neither Vilandra nor Rath answered right away. "Oh - is it a way to combine your powers, four people at a time, to attack somebody or something else with much more firepower?"

"Not to attack," Rath qualified, though he didn't sound too disappointed about that restriction. "The foursquare is - is badass, but it's badass defensively. Maybe not exclusively - you can still use your powers to hurt the other guy when you're in foursquare, and even turn some of the boosted energies of the foursquare to your attack, but that's not really the way it works best. Protective uses of the power - shields and self-defense fields and squelching attacks so that they don't hurt you - those are the primary advantages to going into foursquare, and the main liability of that mode is that you can't move once you've established a foursquare without letting it fall apart. That's good for making a last desperate stand, or covering the retreat of friends, but not for pursuing your enemies."

"Or escaping safely yourself," Rose put in. "I would think. You might be invulnerable as long as you stay where you are, but if you're stuck there, then the bad guys could eventually surround you with too many soldiers to fight, and just wait you out."

"Yeah," Vilandra agreed. "The perfect shield, even one that points in every direction, isn't a perfect salvation, but as Rath said, you can fight back from inside the foursquare too. None of us have ever been in a truly dangerous situation to use it in, if you don't count the exhibition stuff, which isn't intended to hurt anybody, but could get dicey if something goes seriously wrong. Mom's upset that we're still doing it, but we've never even slipped up once."

"Okay, wait a second," Kyle said. "Just how does this thing work, and can any Antarians do it?"

"Not hardly," Rath boasted. "Though it's a bit of a gray area in terms of the talent versus training spectrum, along with the x-factor of how a group of four works together as a team. We've been working on it for a little over a year, ever since Larek commented on how much psychic resonance there was between the four of us as a group. I think that we all score high for - for 'aptitude' at a four square, and then we had to learn just how to connect the right way to make it work. It's a pattern of links that doesn't really make that much sense until you've felt it working, I think. But - but the sense of being untouchable is such a high, as well as the fun of doing something that only a few other people on the planet can match. There's a lot of people who can do foursquares to a certain extent, they have special platoons for them in the Armed forces, but we're among the best, and getting better as we practice and train."

"Umm, interesting," Rose said, feeling like she was on information overload, but that neither of the young Antarians would appreciate it if she changed the subject at this point. "So, how does it actually work in practice? Do you have to be holding hands or something?"

#

"Hey, how's it going?" Maria called as she rushed down the corridor to join Max and Liz near one of the spiral ramps leading up. She was holding Michael's hand at the time, so he was following along nearly abreast with her.

"Pretty good," Liz said, impulsively hugging her old friend. "Michael, can you find your way up to the balcony from here? Zan and Ava are up there already, along with the Doctor and Isabel."

"Umm, sure," Michael said. He gave Maria a kiss goodbye, so far to the side of her face that it was nearly on her ear, and Max a high-five as he passed through. "I'll say hi to your opposite number for you, Maxwell?"

"Don't make too big a deal of it, Michael," Max called back as he disappeared up the ramp. "So, what took you guys so long, Maria? I know you were supposed to be working out a menu with the kitchen, but we sent a message there, and they said that you'd left nearly half an hour ago, or the equivalent."

"Getting lost in corridors, thank you very much," Maria said peevishly. "This place may not be that big, but the floor plan is still - needlessly intricate." Max coughed awkwardly, and Maria glared at him. "What?"

"Oh, nothing," Liz said, and her face became a much too innocent smile. "I know that getting lost always smears **my** lipstick." Maria instantly blushed. "Speaking of, hold still." Liz waved her hand slowly across the front of Maria's face, and then nodded critically. "Much better."

"Come on, most of the other dinner guests have already gathered," Max said, leading the way on down the corridor. "Except for Kyle and Rose, Rath and Vilandra. Well, I guess that they won't be dinner guests if they don't show up soon. Looks like they might have all taken a little field trip together."

"Interesting," Maria admitted grudgingly. "And in my own defense, I'll admit that yes, Michael and I did sneak off somewhere private to fool around, but the getting lost was after that, and it really happened."

"Of course," Liz assured her.

"So, what have the two of you been up to since we broke huddle, anyway?" Maria asked. "I can't even remember what your mission was."

"Nothing very critical," Max admitted. "Just looking for somebody interesting to talk to, who we don't have to avoid for any particular reason, which is harder than it originally seemed. For instance, Liz pointed out that it might get very tricky for me to make much of an impression on young Larek."

"Oh, right," Maria said, shaking her head. "Because you've already met him, so if he recognizes you - then, and not just as Zan, but also as Max who came visiting Brok Bay one time... then he'll know that we're time travellers."

"Well, he'll probably realize that it's the Doctor who's the time traveller," Liz said. "But he might be able to guess when the Doctor comes to Roswell, and that's probably mischief that we don't need."

"Even when we already told him when to expect us on Nunyes?" Maria said. "Okay, yeah, it's complicated enough, let's not argue any more." She sighed. "So, did you find anybody interesting?"

The answer to that question was muchly delayed, because the three of them arrived in the dining room, where the other members of their company were enjoying refreshing drinks and appetizer snacks, but seemed to be eager to start on the next course. The seating arrangement had been set up so that the visitors were not all together, but scattered into different groups, so that Maria was between Alex and Larek, and Max and Liz were together, between Queen Alinda and a little sister of Zan and Vilandra.

Once a ceremonial and nonspecific thanks was recited for the food, Max took the conversational initiative and started asking his hosts some background questions about their political situation and the history of this vacation home where they were all staying. Maria was trying to follow the answers, which got a little complicated, (or maybe she was just missing the necessary background context,) when somebody tapped her on the arm. Maria turned around to see what it was, and found herself staring into a pair of rose-purple Antarian eyes.

"If I could possibly draw you away from the fascinating lecture on governmental theory, the Danza sauce dish is just on the other side of your plate there," Larek pointed out.

"What? Oh, this?" Maria reached out to something that did look a bit like - well, a cross between a gravy boat and a miniature honest-to-goodness rowboat, filled with a kind of blue cranberry jelly. and had a small spoon stuck into it.

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Larek nod as she touched the rectangular plate that the boat was sitting on, so she carefully lifted and passed it over to him. Larek murmured a soft thanks as he used the spoon to serve a small amount of the sauce onto a pile of white lumpy things on his plate.

"You're welcome," she muttered. "I'm not really that interested in the political stuff, I admit. What are these things anyway?" she asked, identifying a nearby serving bowl with more of the same kind of lumps, and bringing several over to her plate. "Not just 'what are they called,' really, so much as 'where do they come from?"

"Well, they're called Zafrangan, and they - they grow in the ocean. Not as fish do, but - they are underwater plants, I guess you would say."

"Plants?" Maria repeated, prodding one of them with the two-tined fork. "Like seaweed?"

"No, not a weed," he explained. "More -umm, starchy. Like a floating tuber."

"Huh? Ohh..." After thinking for a moment, she tried some of the blue sauce, cut up a white lump, and put it in her mouth. Yeah, it did sort of taste like a soggy roast potato with some kind of spicy gravy on it. Not too bad, actually. She smiled thanks at Larek and turned back to what King Sanren was explaining.

She had more to chew on than the Zafrangan, though. Maria knew that she loved Michael, and they weren't even fighting about anything much this week, but somehow she had felt a thrill go through her when talking to Larek. She'd never been one of the ones to meet him via Brody Davis, back in Roswell, but she'd liked Brody a lot as a friend and even flirted with him. But - so she was attracted to a man other than her Spaceboy. That was nothing to worry about, right?


	14. Chapter 14

"So, tell me about yourself, Lady Ava," the Doctor said as they started to sample the first round of appetizers - mostly little crunchy biscuity things. As she sat back and let them talk, Isabel found it hard to actually believe that she was actually talking with Prince Zan and Ava - not hybrid versions who had lived all their lives on Earth like she had, but the Antarian originals, the crown prince and his maybe-girlfriend who would in only a few Antarian years, become King and Queen. 'And after that, dead and deader,' some bitter part of her mind thought, but she managed to avoid blurting that out loud. Michael shot her a surprised look, so Isabel tried to put on her best Ice Princess face, cool and detatched.

"Umm, I feel like there's not that much to say, yet," Ava said, and giggled faintly, reaching out and idly running her fingers along the wall of the small room. "Grew up with my parents, mostly in the raised hives of the Capital City, and my older brothers and sisters. I'm the baby of the pack, actually. My mother is an officer in the Merchant's and trade guild, and father's a performance artist. As far as me, well - I'm still in secondary schooling, though it's been a while since I actually went to class at Everwind..."

"Don't make it sound like you're a dropout, honey," Zan said. "Ava takes classes with the Royal tutors while she's - a guest of the family. We make a small but decent class if you gather all of us 'students' together. And the education is on par with the best schools on the planet."

"Yes, yes, thank you Zan," Ava said, with a mix of exasperation and affection coming through clearly in her voice. (Would it be as easy to tell that if not for the TARDIS translation field, Isabel wondered - aside from all the other difficulties they'd have in understanding Ava and Zan's very words if not for that convenience. She shook her head and tried to leave that distracting thought behind.)

"Think nothing of it," he said grandly. "Tell them about the refugee work you do."

"Refugees?" Michael asked.

"It's not like I've done any of that lately, either," Ava replied, sighing. "And you make it sound like the really in-person thankless stuff or something, but well okay." She looked at the Doctor, Isabel, and Michael in turn, as if she couldn't decide which one to focus on. The way they were arranged in the small dining room didn't allow her to aim at all of the guests at once, as it were.

"Back when I first met Zan, I was involved in public activism, raising awareness for - well, a kind of refugees, strangers to this sphere of space. I'd actually have liked to meet some of these people and help them out a bit more directly if I had an opportunity, but being in the city at the time, trying to meet with government leaders and plead their case was what I could do for the cause."

"And sometimes that's the hardest and most painful part," the Doctor added, with the voice of experience.

"Wait a second," Michael put in. "What kind of refugees are these? You're not talking about - about earthlings, are you?"

"Earthlings?" Zan asked, seeming unable to place the word for a moment, while Ava looked just as confused. "Oh, those poor folk who were abducted from their primitive planet two sectors over?"

"They're not _that_ primitive," the Doctor muttered in an undertone.

"No, no, of course not," Ava said, shooting Zan a dirty look. "But there's no such easy turn of phrase for 'industrialized but without interstellar travel of their own', is there?"

"In any event, resettlement and integration policies for Earthlings are old news," Zan said. "Father had implemented those before I was born - in fact, the process might have been started in my grandfather's time."

"Though it does relate," Ava said. "Certain Antarian conservatives will go on and on if you let them about the slick slide of generous immigration policies, and how they don't want their beautiful world to become overrun with the 'discarded living.'"

"Eww." Isabel wasn't the only one to shudder at that turn of phrase, though she expressed the sentiment out loud succintly with that sound.

"Yes. But to return and fully answer the question, the refugees I had taken the cause of were from the Norhu drift, nearly a thousand parsecs away from Antar. Two nearby races waged such a terrible war that little is left of their home systems but lingering clouds of eta radiation."

"And the survivors from one or another of those races came here looking for a new home, and bit of a hand rebuilding from the loss of their old world?" Michael asked.

"Both races," Zan said, with a little smile. There were soft gasps of surprise. "Yes, that part surprised me too. But the living of Norhu, these ones at least, had the courage to reject the gaps between their species that had led to war, and if they hadn't worked together, pooling their resources and their technological skills, they probably wouldn't have made it to the Antarian sphere."

"Nice story," Isabel admitted. "So how did things work out there?"

"King Sanren took up the cause himself, after meeting me," Ava said shyly. "And passed a resolution through the Senate - for some reason, this sort of thing can't be done unilaterally by the King. It's a constitutional limit on power." She shrugged. "Actually implementing the resolution in practice has caused a few problems already, and things aren't nearly settled, but I'm - well, I gave it my best shot."

"The drift was the only thing on Ava's mind when Larek introduced us," Zan teased her. "I'd been hoping for a liason that was a bit less political and more - personal."

"Oh, give me a break," Ava shot back. "Half of the reason I talked about the Nurho so much was that I was so nervous about being face to face with a Prince that I could hardly think of anything else - and the other half was that I was convinced I'd never see you again, so I needed to seize the opportunity for the cause when I could."

There was a short pause, and Isabel realized that Zan was gazing at her pensively. She wondered what was going through his mind, and then the prince cleared his throat. "Speaking of personal alliances, if I might in this somewhat unusal company - there is something that I've been wanting to ask you about, Ava." Ava let out a little squeak of excitement or nervousness. "We've been spending a lot of time together for nearly a year, but never spoken of - certain things. Anything more than being friends, wanting to be close to each other because we share some of the same attitudes and interests." Zan strode over to Ava's chair, crouching down close to her and taking one of her hands between both of his. "But - but I do feel more for you than just friendship, Ava, and I need to know if you do as well."

"Zan, Zan, Zan." Ava sighed, and after a silent moment she took her own hand back, which made Zan's face fall - but she rose out of the chair and embraced him. "I - I feel a little foolish talking about this in front of our visitors, but what the interstellar. Of course I like you very dearly, as more than a friend, something that might be close to falling in true love. I have known for many moons that you felt that way about me, even if we never said it out loud before, and thought that you knew the same about my heart."

"I - I only hoped," Zan admitted shyly. "I could feel great love when I touched you, but admittedly couldn't be certain if it was yours I was sensing or only the reflection of my own."

"However, if we are speaking of such things to each other now, there is something I must make plain," Ava said, holding both of Zan's hands in hers and settling back to her chair. The Doctor quickly scrambled out of his own seat and pushed it over so that Zan could sit and remain next to Ava. "I - I am not yet ready to become a princess bride, and I know that your family is hoping for you to marry soon, and father a living heir unto the third generation."

"Yes, they hope," Zan agreed. "But - but I won't let them wheel us into the bonding chamber, when neither of us is ready for that kind of commitment."

"I know that - and I believe that you can stand firm against your parents' most forceful wishes for a long time, my darling," Ava said. "Long enough for me to actually want to become your lawful mate, quite likely - but that doesn't mean that it would be a fun period, for either of us." She smiled. "I've thought about this, though, and they're unlikely to try exerting much leverage as long as neither of us makes a public declaration of our affections."

"Oh." Zan's face fell obviously. "That makes some sense, indeed. But I can't say that I'm not disappointed."

"Are you thinking what I'm thinking, Ava?" Isabel blurted out, surprising herself at how she was stepping into the middle of what had been a private conversation, though not one private enough that it didn't have an audience.

"Well, I might be, possibly," the Doctor muttered softly. "But wherever would we find enough bowler hats and a stockpile of marmelade, here on Antar?"

Everybody stared at the Doctor for a long moment, while he kept his face straight. But as soon as Michael snickered, the Doctor let a smile emerge, and Isabel grinned and giggled herself. Zan and Ava still looked mystified. "Sorry, guys - Earth humor. I can't really explain the joke, so I'll just apologize for letting the Doctor inflict it on you."

"Alright, apology accepted," Ava said. "But, well, I was slightly lost in the conversation even before it took that sharp turn."

"Allow me to explain in a bit more detail, then," Isabel said. "What if the two of you plan a special moment for Zan's name-day party, that isn't a public declaration of affection, but that lets everybody who already 'kinda knows' that the two of you like each other, know that you've talked about how much you like each other and are growing closer? While still not officially meaning anything at all in terms of the usual cultural conventions? That wouldn't give the King and Queen any particular push to marry the two of you, would it?"

"Umm, no, I suppose not," Zan admitted. "But I'm not sure I know what a 'moment' like that would be."

"I haven't gotten it all worked out yet myself," Isabel admitted. "But I've got a few ideas. Let me talk about it with the rest of my friends, right? We've got more than a day to prepare."

"Well, thank you for all of your help, Isabel," Ava told her. "I'm so glad that you've come."

"Happy to drop by and get to know you all," Michael said magnanimously, stretching his arms up and out contentedly.

#

"Come on Rath," Vilandra called out in a petulant tone. "I've seen you fly in the air more than often enough lately. It's getting dark and chilly out here, I'm hungry, and I want to go back to the palace."

The first response from the airborne Rath was a scoff, and then he swooped down somewhat and hovered not far over her head. "What if I'm not ready to go back yet?"

"Then I'll give you one more opportunity," Vilandra said, reaching up, and something small zipped down from Rath into her hand. "Are you going to take me back home, or will I have to pilot the fin-car back and leave you to fly home all by yourself?"

"Hah!" Rose exclaimed. "That's the way to get to 'im, sister!"

"Bit of a low blow," Kyle remarked under his breath in a surface show of male solidarity, but he wasn't really too upset about it. Something about Rath's flamboyant confidence had been starting to get on his nerves.

Rath drifted down slowly to the sparse grass, and reached out his hand towards Vilandra's face with such a hangdog expression that Kyle almost did feel sorry for him. "You know that there's only one answer to that choice, honey," he said morosely, and Vilandra kissed his fingers and then handed back the small object that she had taken - some sort of alien equivalent to an ignition key. The mood was definitely subdued as the four of them piled back into the car, and Rath started up its motor.

And also, the darkness had indeed closed in surprisingly quickly, on the heels of an impressive sunset. Kyle pondered that vaguely as the vehicle started into motion. Could it be something about the Antarian atmosphere, that made twilight brief? But that would be controlled by how light was scattered by the air, and if there was less scattering, wouldn't they have noticed that in the daytime sky? He remembered noticing that the Antarian sky had been a very Earthlike blue, a bit jarring considering the expectations he'd had for some totally different color.

Rose reached out to squeeze Kyle's hand with her fingers, as if warning him about sinking down into his thoughts, and a bare second later a wave of cold wind seemed to slam over the open fin-car, forcing out the breath of all four occupants and shoving the vehicle itself sideways and down. "What - what was that?" Vilandra asked, sounding concerned, and maybe just a little bit frightened.

"A cold air mass that formed over the bay," Rath replied through gritted teeth, fighting to steady the car. "Nothing to worry about..." Unfortunately, he had only gotten those words out when something else made the car shake - not another blast of wind, but something tugging at it from underneath, or...

"I'm getting a very very bad feeling about all this," Rose muttered sullenly.

"It's the fins underneath the car," Kyle realized. "We got too low, and they're dragging on the foliage or the terrain itself." The uneven nature of the next bout of shaking seemed to bear out his guess. "Rath, can't you give us any more altitude? The wind isn't blowing us down any..."

"I've been trying, but it's not working," Rath snapped back. "Something much have damaged the matter repulsor subsystem." Once again, the ship dragged. "I'm going to have to retract them and land us, and this might be bumpy."

He hadn't been overstating the case. Though Rath obviously tried to brake against forward velocity, their final touchdown in the middle of the dark field was accompanied by a vicious forward jerk of inertia as the chassis lost all its forward velocity a second before absorbing the passengers. Another blast of cold wind chose that moment to pass over them. "So what do we do now, stranded away from the Castle in a fin-car that doesn't work?" Rose asked.

"We fix it," Rath declared confidently, rummaging around under the 'dash' of the car and pulling out a small box with rounded-off edges and corners. "Kyle, you're with me."

Kyle immediately felt an internal conflict. In general he approved of the sentiment that it was the job of the menfolk to resolve roadside emergencies and take care of the vehicle. However... "I don't know if you didn't realize this, Rath, or just forgot it, but we don't have anything like fin-cars on Earth. So I'm not sure how much help I'm going to be to you. Maybe Vilandra should..."

Rath leapt over the side of the car and turned to glare meaningfully at Kyle. "Can you make a light for me?" he asked in a low growl, raising his hand and making it shine with visible alien power.

"Umm - well, no. Earthling," Kyle felt compelled to point out. (Actually, that wasn't 100% true, since Max had saved his life with alien powers, but it didn't seem a good idea to betray that here in the past. Also, light had never been an ability that Kyle had had much luck with himself, on the few occasions that Liz and Max had persuaded him to practice for future emergencies.) "No Antarian powers."

Rath seemed doubtful about that, but he let the light of his hand fade and opened up the box. From this, he produced a small orb, and with a touch of a small icon on its surface, the orb also produced a bright glow. "Can you _hold_ a light for me?" Rath asked rhetorically, tossing the orb over to Kyle.

"Well yeah," Kyle said, catching it easily and getting out of the car himself, the less flashy way that involved retracting a 'door' down towards the ground. "I can hold your - your emergency tools or whatever, too, so you have your hands free." He had to fight down a sense of foolishness making the offer - was it really any different than what he'd done for his Dad when they were first learning auto mechanics. This was certainly such a new kind of engine, it made sense that he'd need to start back at the beginning.

Of course, Rath wasn't as gracious about it as Kyle's father. "Sure. I'm unlikely to need to use anything other than my powers a o which one of the repulsor fins had retracted.

It took a little while for Rath to check all of the fins and the rest of the 'subsystem' that powered them, as the weather got worse around them. Vilandra seemed to be silently exerting her power on the bitter rain when that started, driving as much of the spray as she could away from the vicinity of the car, but she couldn't keep them dry especially when the wind shifted direction suddenly.

"There's - there's nothing mechanically wrong with it," Rath insisted after checking the last panel. "I thought that something might have broken or been blown into the circuits when the first blast hit, but I'd have seen some evidence of that by now. The only other thing that fits is that somebody was using his or her powers to drain away the energy of the repulsors."

"That's ridiculous, paranoid - and beyond the point, Rath," Vilandra answered. "I've been patient, and not even brought up the communicator while you checked the car out yourself, but now it's time. I'll call for security, and they'll come out and get us."

"Oh, come on," Rath wheezed, stepping around to stand next to Vilandra's seat, outside the car. "Does it have to be security? I'm not saying that we don't need some help at this point, but couldn't you ask somebody a bit less annoying?"

"Who?" Vilandra asked, taking a short wand from the from where it was clipped on the dash console. "Everybody else will be at dinner, or after-dinner. There's no time to ask some servitor to find them, after all." Rath considered this silently, and without waiting for his reply, Vilandra held the wand closer to her face, pressing down with two fingers on a brightly colored band a little over half way up the stick. "This is Bluebird calling the bear's uncles. Repeat, Bluebird calling for emergency assistance."

"Good to hear from you Bluebird," a deep but pleasant voice announced from all around the fin-car. "What's your alpha? We have confirmed reports of an unidentified psychic presence exerting the Power outside. Can you confirm..."

"Yes, um, we're quite all right," Vilandra insisted. "Some mechanical difficulties with the transportation, and unexpected weather, but if that's all that an unidentified psychic power can do, then I for one..."

"At five one five do all the bells ring," Rose suddenly called in a strangely lilting tone of voice, "and as with the sound of a weapon firing, so does the dawn break. 'The saviour and his book', speaks and sceams the matron of the portal. The spheres of kismet yet continue in their courses, and though you are not here, still continues my love for you."

"Rose!" Kyle exclaimed, trying to climb back into the car to reach her, but the 'door' had retracted back up, and he couldn't seem to figure out how to work it from outside. By the time he'd charged around the parked vehicle and reached Rose, she had collapsed with her head hanging next to her knee.

"What was that?" the voice of security asked.

"Our condition is red as blood!" Rath screamed. "Location is two kilometers north by northeast of the palace. Get as many people as you can here, quick!"

#

None of the diners in the downstairs great hall had left the table, though dinner was clearly over. After sampling a few 'after-dinner refreshments', and been warned off one by Alex, who'd made quite a study of ingredients in Antarian cuisine that would not agree with human biology, Max had settled on something whose name he couldn't pronounce or even remember, but whose taste and consistency made him think of an peanut M&Ms milkshake.

Jim and the King had been dominating the after-dinner conversation - Mister Valenti hadn't seen any reason to hide his own background in Earth law enforcement, and Sanren of Liaret was apparently well familiar with many issues of public safety and crime that were relevant to his realm. Some things apparently were very similar between the two worlds, though Jim obviously despaired at the notion of policing a world mostly full of individuals with alien powers - even if the police all had them too.

Suddenly, Queen Alinda gasped loudly, her head rolling back slightly. "My girl!" she gasped out. "Something's out there - in the storm - with my daughter. Where could it have come from?"

Max shot a curious look over at Liz to see what she made of this - and realized that she was also experiencing some kind of alien flash, and trying not to make it obvious to anybody else at the table. Fortunately, none of the native Antarians seemed to be paying any attention to her - Larek had immediately started telling silly short jokes to distract the little kids from worrying about their mother, and Sanren leaned close to his bride and mate, whispering something indistinct into her ear.

In a moment someone new had hurried into the dining hall - a tall, uniformed Antarian man that Max had taken for a butler before, but now seemed to emanate a different kind of authority. After conferring with the King, this person addressed the entire company. "The queen has had a presentiment of a hostile psychic presence in the area, and the weather has turned foul in the past few minutes," he reported crisply. "Can anyone else corroborate Her Majesty's impressions?" There was a few seconds of silence. "If any of you have information, I urge you to share it. We need to know what we might be dealing with."

Max sent Liz a 'be strong' look, but it seemed that she had already made her decision to muddle through with some attempt at honesty and see where that left them. "I - I don't even really know what I sensed," Liz said. "I saw a storm, which is crazy because the weather is so beautiful out."

"It got cool very suddenly a bit earlier," one of the young girls of the Liaret family reported, eager to show off knowledge. "Zan and the Time Lord had to move their dinner inside to the upstairs lounge from the patio."

"Yes," the uniformed man confirmed. "And now there are strong winds and some rain."

"Is Princess Vilandra really outside the palace?" Jim asked, a little sharply.

The uniformed man bristled slightly, and somehow from that expression Max suddenly was sure that he was a head bodyguard - reacting to the implied slight against his performance of his duties. "We have been instructed to not keep a close watch on their Highnesses while they are here at the Bayside palace," he explained. "The princess has not been located within the building complex, and there is a..." The bodyguard suddenly cocked his head, reacting to some source of information that the rest of them couldn't perceive, or even tell if it was technical or psychic. "An emergency call has just come in over short-range to the palace switchboard. Technical difficulties with a vehicle - yes, it's the princess."

"I see," Sanren put in with a weighty nod. "See that she gets whatever assistance she requires, Penner. No indication of other distress?"

"No, she seems calm," the bodyguard reported. "Anything else?"

"See that my eldest child is brought here when she comes inside," the King decided. "No - I'll retire to the Noble study and meet her there. But I want to have a conversation with her."

"Very good." With a nod, the bodyguard withdrew and headed towards a door out of the dining hall - and paused, then spun back to the head of the table. "There - there's something new now! Lord Rath - he's reporting a codeword that I'm not familiar with... more than that, he seems genuinely frightened of whatever's happening!"

There was a momentary tableau, then Sanren leapt to his feet. "Everybody move!" he roared, taking several steps away from the table himself, and then reconsidering. "The young children..."

"I'll keep them busy," Maria immediately volunteered. "Been a few years since I've worked as a babysitter, but it's like riding a bike."

"What's a bike?" Larek muttered, but nobody thought it was an important subject to get into at that time.

It wasn't really everbody from the dining room but the little kids and Maria who charged out into the stormy night to check on Rath and Vilandra - Queen Alinda also chose to help babysit, and Alex decided to go up and let the upstairs dinner party know what was going on. That turned out to not be entirely necessary - the Doctor and Prince Zan emerged down a different rampway to join in the search party, and after a moment's hesitation Max mumbled a completely intelligible excuse and rushed down a corridor, wondering what he would do next, assuming that getting lost was not his only option.

It seemed clear that even getting lost was preferable to spending much time with his alien progenitor in this particular circumstance, though. Max wouldn't have been able to shake the sensation that the two of them being together might be the cause of, or a contributing factor to, whatever was happening to Vilandra and Rath.

#

To Kyle, it seemed like only a moment after Rose had collapse and Rath had started yelling into the communicator before the search party ground vehicles approached the fallen fincar. (Liz later told him that it must have taken them more than ten minuted to get that close.) Just as he spotted the brightly colored headlights approaching them, Rose started to stir in her seat, mumbling and sounding very confused and disoriented, and Kyle reached out to comfort her. When the first of the groundcars pulled to a stop, with bodyguards and Lord Larek piling out, the rain had almost finished falling and the winds were dying down.

Suddenly, with a shake, the fin-car lifted into the air again, its fins slowly arrowing down into the space that it had left. "Umm, okay, now I'm starting to feel a little bit asinine here, calling you out here," he said, "calling you all out here so melodramatically and there being so little to show for it. But - but the fin-ster was _not_ working, couldn't levitate at all, and..."

"It's okay, Rath," Larek assured him. "It wasn't just the vehicle either, was it? We - we had portents back at the palace."

"Portents?" Kyle asked. "Like, fortune-telling stuff?"

"No, just psychic sensitivity," one of the guards said with a perfectly straight face. Well, maybe in Antarian society there was a valid distinction there, if most of the population had natural talents in the same veins as Kyle's hybrid friends.

"Who picked it up?" Rath asked. "What did they sense? Is it still here?"

Those questions provoked a little consternation among the would-be rescuers, and Sanren was the one to finally attempt a clear answer. "It was Alinda who got the clearest sense, but - she was shaken by what she saw. I thought it would be safer not to bring her closer. Who was it that corroborated... Liz?"

"Umm, yeah?" Liz said, seeming surprised.

"One of the earthlings?" Vilandra said, sounding faintly dismissive. "I can tell you about the mental presence. I admit, I was close enough that I couldn't see it to start, my senses overwhelmed, but I can be sure that it's gone now."

"None of us know what psychic talents the Earth natives might have," Larek insisted. "Even themselves, since they haven't learned the ways to test for and practice those powers." He turned to Liz as if expecting a reaction from her too.

"Yeah, ummm - I'm still not sure what I sensed, but it seems more likely that it's gone away than that it's still lingering, I'll agree with that," Liz muttered awkwardly.

"And I will corroborate that impression as well," the Doctor declared grandly. "A Time Lord's psychic talents are different from the Antarians', but I did sense something clearly - that's why I was on my way down when you were on your way outside, your Majesty. The mental presence is no longer here, but - but there was something strange about the transition, something that I don't understand." He sighed. "It seems we have a mystery facing us here as well."

"As well?" Rath asked. "Where else have you been presented with challenges like this?"

"Umm - well, nothing exactly like this, and explaining where might be a bit confusing," the Doctor muttered, and let his voice trail off as naturally as he could.

"Well, we don't need to keep talking out here into the night, though the weather is becoming less unpleasant," his Majesty observed. "If the fin-car appears operative now, then follow our lead back to the Palace, Lord Rath. We will be staying close enough to render assistance if it seems needed."

"And far enough away to avoid a collision if you should lose control unexpectedly," Larek pointed out.

"Yes, please," Liz said, and followed Larek back to one of the wheel-vans.

#

"Thank you very much," Ava said, as she lifted up the mug that Alex had brought to her - the liquid that she drank from it was a dark reddish, thick and frothy, and smelled faintly like chocolate milk and peach tea. "I almost feel like I should have gone out with Zan to make sure that Vilandra and Rath are okay - they've been so kind to me. But something was so frightening about the mind that is lurking out there, that having seen it clearly, I guess I couldn't..." She broke off, shuddered, and took another long draught. "Maybe that's the reason for the 'power divide' - oh, but you guys wouldn't know anything about that, I guess, would you?"

"Tell me about it," Isabel suggested.

"Well, there are a lot of exceptions, but the conventional joke is - when the old creators gave Antarians powers, the females received the psychic perceptions to sense danger - and the men got the active abilities to face it." Ava made a sour face. "I never really liked that, possibly because it's mostly true for me."

"Hmm," Micahel said, considering this rather obviously. Alex couldn't help but think of the applications either. Tess had never seemed that sensitive, in the use of her powers, and the mindwarp was certainly an active ability that had gotten her out of many dangerous situations, though it wasn't as effective if somebody knew that she was there. But otherwise, the experiences of their little group seemed to back up this notion as well.

"Well, let's talk about something else," Isabel suggested, and then sighed as an awkward silence descended on them.

"How - how much do you actually know about Antarian politics?" Alex blurted out. "I mean, well, there's no particular reason that you should be an expert, just because you're... you're friends with Zan, but..." Isabel and Ava absolutely burst out into giggles at this point, cutting him off. "What - what did I say?"

"I'm sorry, you'd probably find it funny too if you'd been here for the big scene earlier," Isabel told him. "Ava, do you mind if I tell Alex?"

"Umm - let me," the Antarian girl said. "Alex, Zan and I are - more than friends. He just made that very clear, and we have an understanding, though neither of us are going to make a big deal of it with his parents."

"Oh, why not?" Alex asked. "Don't the King and Queen approve of you?"

"They approve of her rather too much," Michael put in from where he was sitting near the corner. "Ava doesn't want them to pressure Zan to ask her to marry him, just yet. Hence it's better to leave things at least partly unspoken."

"Right, and I sort of committed us to helping Ava come up with a nice little 'unspoken' moment for Zan's big party, day after tomorrow," Isabel said, smiling at Alex. "Umm - but we don't have to start planning for that before getting to your question, sweetie. Politics?" She turned back to Ava.

"Umm, I don't know that much, but - should I start by assuming that you don't know anything at all - except that there's a Royal family, I suppose."

"Yeah, that'll be a good place to start," Michael agreed. "How long has the Liaretian, umm, what's the word, dynasty been at this point anyway? How long have they ruled? I feel like I should at least have studied enough to kno that, but I can't remember it at the moment."

"Oh, umm, not that long, at least not uninterrupted rule," Ava said, smiling and obviously feeling comfortable with this question. "Sanren is, I think, the fourth Liaretian king since the Granas Constitution. That was Sanren's great-grandfather, actually, Granas Liaret, and he had a claim to a much older Royal lineage that hadn't been much honored through the ages of the Planetary ruling council, and then the Supreme regional assemblies."

"So, were those older systems - democratic?" Alex asked, looking startled. "As in, people voting for their representatives on the council or the assemblies, one person one vote?"

"Umm, I'm not sure," Ava said, frowning this time. "About the details of the old council at least - we can look it up. For the assemblies, yes, there were regional elections, and I think some of the assemblies had 'one vote per person' and some didn't."

"But they went from that to a Constitutional that installed a King?" Isabel asked. "And one where the King wasn't just a figurehead, as far as I know, but one with some real power in the government."

"Yes," Ava agreed. "By that time, the system of the regional assemblies wasn't working well - corruption was rampant in most of them, small petty wars had started to break out, and bandit tribes were growing in disputed regions where none of the Assemblies could or would chase them down. And though there were some people who were pushing for the formation of a planet-wide republic, others thought that still wouldn't eliminate the political infighting and democratic delays. So, the Granas constitution established a monarchy with strong powers, but checks and balances on the rights of the King as well. The regional assemblies still take care of local affairs, though the rules for their elections have been reformed, and there is a planetary assembly as well, and a Senate Council formed of delegates sent by the regional assemblies."

"Yeah, I can see how that could work alright," Michael said.

"Unfortunately, there's a lot of prominent people, even in the Assembly and the Senate, who are speaking out against the power of the Throne now," Ava said, sighing. "Saying that it was necessary to unite the regions, but that power should transition to the people now. Zan says that they just think they can win power for themselves in electoral campaigns. I had a political science teacher back when I was in school who had a theory that the political history of Antar was cyclical - one form of government arises from public activism, is established, rules well for a while, then grows either weak or corrupt or both, and is overthrown by another revolution. Maybe the royalty will be overthrown within my lifetime."

There was another awkward silence for a moment. None of the Roswell natives wanted to comment much on that possibility, because they knew far too much. "Okay, so, let's talk party plans," Alex put in, and Ava laughed with some relief.

Just then, somebody knocked on the door and said "What party?" Isabel wasn't the closest to the door, but she was the first who got up and went to open it, probably because she was the most familiar the voice of the newcomer.

"Max?" she said, pulling open the door. "I thought you were going with the search party, along with..." Suddenly the possible problem with that occured to her. "Did they only just get going? Zan and the Doctor left here ages ago."

"Nice to see you too," Max said, giving Isabel an affectionate sibling hug. "And no, I - well, I kinduv hurried off quickly once I saw Zan, and got a bit lost, but then I bumped into one of the downstairs maids, and remembered something that somebody had said at dinner about asking the help if you needed anything. So she was able to direct me here."

"Why didn't you want to meet the prince, Max?" Ava asked, and Michael only managed to cover his groan halfway.

"That, umm, that's kind of complicated, Ava," Isabel said. "I'm not even sure if we can begin to explain, but - we want to learn more about the Prince, of course, but we decided that Max shouldn't be one of the people who spends a lot of time with him."

"So, was that part of the reason that you invited him to have supper with you up here, while Max ate downstairs?" Ava asked shrewdly.

"Yes, it was," Alex said. "But please, don't keep asking further. There are things that we are not allowed to explain further, on the orders of the Doctor as well as for other reasons."

Ava considered this for a moment. "You mean nobody here harm? Zan or his family, Lord Rath, Lord Larek - or me? The servants too, I suppose."

"On my word and honor, I so swear it," Max insisted, and the others all agreed out loud too. "We - we would help protect you if we could, but that also might not be allowed."

"Is it a question of disrupting future history, then?" Ava guessed. There was no answer. "Come, it is said that the Time Lords can travel into the past or the future - for what other mastery would they get their name. We of Antar have not mastered such energies, but our poets and storytellers have been fascinated by the notion of temporal paradox for many years. It isn't hard to guess that is what concerns you."

"You're on the right track," Michael agreed guardedly after a moment. "But please, don't even tell Zan..."

"No, I shall keep your secret," Ava said, looking haunted. "It would be better if he and the others do not know - in fact, I am starting to wish that I hadn't guessed, for now I cannot stop thinking of what my biography reads. Don't worry, I will ask you no more questions in that wise."

"Umm, thanks," Isabel said. "So now what?"

"To answer your question, Max - it is Zan's naming day party, of course," Ava put in. "You have heard of that already, for his younger brother told you in my hearing."

"Oh, right," Max said, smiling. "So what about it - besides the fact that I'd better stay on the edges of the crowd, which won't be news to me."

"Stop me if you've heard this one before..." Isabel started


	15. Chapter 15

Rose groaned when she realized that she was lying down, though it wasn't as if she were laying on anything particularly hard. In fact, it felt like a bed considerably softer and fancier than... well, than any she'd been in, as far as that went. There was something that had given her a big headache, though.

It was about at this point, as she was pondering what could have given her a headache and why she was lying down on a fancy bed, that Rose realized she was just waking up. For the moment, it seemed just about as plausible as anything that this was the morning. But the morning after what? She remembered - she remembered their first day on ancient Antar, but not any details about how the night had ended up. Maybe there had been significant quantities of some strong Antarian drink... which hopefully didn't have any worse after-effects for her than ordinary alcohol...

"Hi, Rose, how are you feeling?" somebody said, and the voice was so familiar and concerned that she immediately opened her eyes. That wasn't the best idea she'd ever had, but the light wasn't completely overpowering, so she tried to lift a hand up in front of her eyes to shade them somewhat, (which didn't work too well, her arms having surprisingly little strength and co-ordination just at that moment,) and then settled for closing eyelids halfway, and squinting through them, which did bring a face into focus. "Kyle! What are you doing in my room? Were we naughty last night?"

"A little, but not in any of the really fun ways," somebody else chimed in, and it was a voice that Rose recognized immediately even without squinting for a face. "You scared us more than a little, dear sweet Rose."

"And the Doctor." She sighed happily. "Both of my guys, in here with me. What could I possibly have done to scare you, Doctor?"

"What - what do you remember?" That question was Kyle again, and she felt the mattress shift and the nearness of somebody sitting next to where she lay, on top of the thin blanket. That had to be Kyle as well, she figured.

"Let's see. We got here, met the Lady Ava on the beach, and were presented to the King and Queen. Then - then you and I snuck off, young Master Valenti, and ran into somebody on the ramp who offered to take us out cruising. R-Raff?"

"Rath came later," Kyle corrected her softly. "It was Princess Vilandra on the ramp. Do you remember cruising with them?"

"I - I remember Rath talking our ears off about the power and majesty of the Four square, and how we'd have a chance to see it for ourselves if we stayed until - until today?"

"No, that would be tomorrow, still," Kyle said, his voice again gentle as he clarified. "It's sometime in the middle of the night, but this is Antarian clock, like the one on Kaalto. The new day only starts at the morning twilight, or something like that."

"Alright." Rose thought about that more. "I... I'm not sure if I can remember anything else. Did a Genie attack us out at the standing stones?"

"No, no Genies out there, Rose," Kyle reassured her. "We started to drive back, or fly back, hover back, something like that, and there was a storm, and a - well, you said something strange. I don't remember all of the words, but it was like alien free-verse poetry, with a bell ringing five times, and love never ending, and the sound of a gun, and..."

"The alarm still rings at five AM, the day goes off like a rifle," the Doctor softly muttered. "Missus Jones next door is still extreme, goes on and on about the Bible. What goes around still comes around, sun goes up, sun goes down." He took a quick breath. "And love goes on. Love goes on, even when you're gone."

"Yes, that's - well, those weren't the exact words, but that sounds like another version, a different translation," Kyle said. "What is it?"

"Country and Western music - maybe still in your future," the Doctor said. "Surprised that both Rose and I remembered it, even if it was just subconscious for her - that isn't really the favorite thing of either of us. But whatever happened to Rose, it must have been looking for a suitable sentiment to express, and those words were the basis for it."

"But - but what was it?" Rose asked, starting to become truly frightened at Kyle's descriptions.

"I'm not sure, especially since I wasn't there," the Doctor muttered. "I did sense some sort of hostility out in your direction, and the Antarians, who are possibly more experienced in such things, say that it was a psychic presence. But even they can't explain it entirely - in their experience, a psychic presence has to either arise naturally from a nearby mind, or be projected in from outside. Neither of those appears to be the case here. There was no sign of projection from outside the area, and none of the four of you could or would do what was done, it seems."

"But you said that it used Rose's memory to form words," Kyle put in.

"Yes, but as far as I can tell that was a psychic influence that came upon her from without, in that time, not something that was buried deep inside her. I would have recognized if she was under psychic influence earlier today. I checked everybody before we came, just in case - and anyway, the TARDIS would probably have known itself."

There was an awkward silence. "So what do we do now?"

"I'm not sure, except that we should all get some rest. The royal guards are on the watch for any more suspicious incidents, not that I think any such things will happen so soon. We can discuss what's happened in the morning."

"Alright, then I guess I should say goodbye for now."

"Goodnight, Kyle, and - and thanks for whatever, for everything," Rose whispered, and managed to lift her hand enough to wave to him. Then the Doctor leaned over and put a hand over her forehead, and she felt herself falling backwards into a restful sleep.

#

"Okay, break it down for me," Max told Liz as he sawed off a piece of the triangular Antarian bread, that they called 'Darva.' "Did anybody mention any theories to you the whole itme?"

"No, I think that the security people are completely mystified," Liz said, and stopped to ruffle her hair slightly as a breeze blew in off the bay. The two of them were apparently the only ones who had woken for an early breakfast on the balcony. "In fact, well - I said something about ghosts, mostly just because I was curious. I'm not sure if any of them had thought of such a thing before, but I don't think that Antarian culture tends to run to such superstitions in general. But one of the guards was talking to Prince Zan about it after we parked back here at the palace. I hope that I didn't accidentally convince people that we're all living in a haunted house or anything."

"I don't think we need to be too concerned with any such thing," Max told her with a tolerant smile. "If it really is a new cultural meme to them, then I can see everybody being interested in the idea, but that doesn't mean that they'll suddenly believe in it."

"Yeah, I hope that you're right." She heard one of the doors on the patio slide open, and raised her voice. "Hello, come on, sit down."

"How - how did you know that I was here?" To everybody's surprise, the answer did not come from the doorway, but somewhere out near the edge of the patio. As Liz blinked in astonishment and waved at Mister Valenti, who quietly stepped over the threshold and slid the door closed behind him, Max hurried over towards the edge.

"Your Highness," Max said after taking a look, in a voice loud enough that Liz and Jim could both hear him. "We actually didn't know that you were coming - Liz was speaking to Mister Valenti."

"Oh, umm... then should I consider the invitation rescinded?" Vilandra replied in a much smaller voice.

"No, by no means, if you've come to see us or spend time with us, then my all means come on up." After a few seconds the Antarian princess emerged, stepping up the last few steps of a staircase that connected the patio with a lower courtyard, and she made an elaborate courtesy.

"Thank you for - well, for being somewhat happy to see me, if nothing else," Vilandra said as she took an empty seat at one of the hexagonal tables that had been pushed together. (There were more of them stacked leaning against the wall, and yesterday afternoon they'd figured out how to set up the tables and Alex had gotten started on a ramble about how many different patterns X many hexagons could be arranged in.) "I feel so sorry about what happened to your friend last night."

"Come on," Liz replied. "It wasn't - well, I don't understand the entire situation, of course, but I really doubt that any of it is your fault. And Rose is doing fine - Kyle too, he wasn't hurt or anything. You just wanted to be a good hostess and show them someplace interesting."

Vilandra didn't look too convinced by Liz's argument, and for a moment there was a slightly heavy silence, broken only by the sounds of the brisk breeze. "So, is there anything particular planned for today?" Jim asked, possibly trying to start on an easier conversation topic.

"Um, I'm not too sure," Vilandra mumbled, but a smile was getting itself started on her face. "We're not really that big on daily plans here at Brok Bay - Father has too much of that particularly, all the rest of his life, so when he's taking a break here it's a rare chance to just let whatever happen whenever, and so we've all fallen in with that idea of life without schedule."

"Oh, I see," Liz said. "I guess I'm not as used to unstructured vacations myself." Max chuckled softly at that.

"Well, perhaps I overstated the case," Vilandra added, cocking her head to the side slightly. "It's impossible for a royal lifestyle to ever be completely unstructured, after all - maybe I've just gotten to feel like it's relatviely unimportant and have started to ignore the schedule here." She considered for a moment. "There's somebody coming out to visit this afternoon - some relative of Ava maybe, and I think that mother said that she wanted to have a Chorus of Songs."

"A what?" Max asked. "I mean, I'm not familiar with the term, it sounds like it's something musical, but..."

"Oh, yes, it's - hmm..." Vilandra seemed to be pondering how to explain something that she took for granted to such strangers. "It's a small social event, where different people from the attendants, usually not professional musicians, sing or perform for the pleasure of the others. And there's a kind of alien crystals that are used, which scan the mind of the performer, and create sound from their memories, recreating instruments that aren't actually available."

"Karaoke, alien karaoke," Jim breathed, and Vilandra shot him a look, probably even more confused by whatever the japanese word was translated into. "That's a similar custom back on Earth, usually done in public restaurants or bars, but - again, they have amateurs singing, and instead of your crystals, an electronic sound system, rigged with a library of instrumental recordings of popular songs."

"Oh, good," Vilanda said, shaking her head slightly in her delight. "Then you can all join in. I'm sure that the crystals won't have any problems accessing your minds, so you can sing us Earth songs."

"Umm - not all of us are big karaoke stars," Liz disclaimed. "I think you'll be able to get Maria and Alex up there without too much trouble - both of them have musical aspirations that go beyond the 'amateur', actually. But for the rest of us..."

"It'll be best if you don't try to get too stubborn," Vilandra laughed back. "I can be **very** persuasive. Just ask... ooh." And something about that phrase seemed to instantly kill her high spirits, and Max wondered if it had something to do with the night before.

"Will you join us for breakfast, your highness?" Liz asked with a friendly smile. "Or have you already eaten?"

"Um, no I haven't, so I suppose I have no excuse," Vilandra put in, shaking her head so that her hair flew back and forth in a way that Liz thought she had probably practiced. (Just as Liz had tried a few such feminine mannerisms over the year, as much as it embarassed her to think about spending time on such things.) Somehow the gesture seemed to draw Liz's attention to the color of the princess' hair, which was a multitoned pale blue, something that she'd noticed in passing when meeting Vilandra and Rath outside in the fin-car, but hadn't really paid much attention to. It was a color that Liz might have seen back in Roswell, but only from a very expensive artificial dye job. (The cheap punk haircolor kits didn't give you that kind of shading, just one hue of blue or whatever.)

Somehow, on Vilandra, however, the blue hair combined with her pink-silvery skin tone and burgundy eyes to look - natural, even right. It was a strange effect, and Liz found herself staring as Max passed Vilandra a tall cup of a hot stimulating beverage that neither she or Max had found a taste for yet.

"Hmm?" Vilandra also stared at the cup for a moment, then shook her head again. "Umm, I don't mean to be overly particular, but could you pour it into one of the big wide mugs?" She pointed off at one of the dishes that Liz had actually taken for soup bowls with handles on the side. "Sorry, that's just how I always have my Kahtee, ever since I started drinking it."

"That doesn't mean that you can't try something new," Valenti pointed out as Max set the tall cup down on the table so that he could better reach for a mug. "Doesn't mean that you have to either, just - experiencing new things, or even familiar things in slightly new ways, can be very broadening. Believe me, I'm getting an education in that just now."

"Yes, I suppose that you are," Vilandra said, reaching out partway towards the translucent plastic cup before her arm froze. "It - it seems foolish that I can't vary from my routine in just this little way, when you've come to a brand-new planet that you can't have known very much about before coming here, but on the other hand - I just don't really see the benefit of compromising in such a little way. I'll try something new in a familiar way later today, honest I will, but..."

"It's okay, don't let the Sheriff badger you," Max told the princess with a reassuring smile, as he picked the cup up again. "We're here to find out what a reasonably normal life is like for you guys, after all, not to get you to change things around for our benefit." He started to pour the hot liquid from the tall narrow glass into the much larger, if shorter mug. "So, why do you like Kahtee so much, anyway? I tried it, and even if..."

Just at that moment, something seemed to shoot over the edge of the patio and smacked Max in the shoulder. He nearly dropped the glass he was pouring out of, managed to keep ahold of it, and in the process dropped the mug. It bounced off the table, spilling hot Kahtee all over it and splashing some on himself, and then crashed onto the flour, shattering into a few big pieces, some smaller fragments, and probably hundreds of shards of brown glassy stuff. "Wow," Liz muttered. "Max, are you..."

"I'm fine," he insisted. "Not much actually landed on my bare skin, and it's not _that_ hot." Quickly he set down the plastic cup, (which didn't have much left in it,) and brushed some of the warm liquid from his left forearm, managing mostly to smear it over a larger area, which was a little bit of a relief at least. "Did anybody see what hit me? Where did it go?"

"I think it dropped to the floor beside you," Vilandra said, vaguely gesturing as she hurried up the other side of the table towards the ruins of her mug. "Wow, these really do just go all to pieces when they're dropped, don't they? Something a bit more durable would be the practical choice I admit, but I love the look and texture of this sort of glass ceramic, and I guess they can't combine that with perfect strength just yet." She sighed, looking at all the fragments. "I should clean the shards up with my powers. You won't be disturbed by that, would you?"

"Um, no," Liz said, brightening slightly. "Can you restore the broken pieces into a mug again?"

"Oh." Vilandra looked hard at all the little shards. "I, I suppose I could, but it would be very difficult. Not so much for the- hmm..." She considered for another moment. "If you wish it, Liz of Roswell, then I will try. It should not be beyond my powers, though I have not tried such a thing before, and that wasn't what I meant when I planned to 'clean it up.' I was thinking of just gathering the broken pieces and connecting them together in any old shape, just so that they're not in the way or anything, you know?"

"Umm, yes, I guess I know what you're getting at," Liz said, smiling slightly. "To restore the mug as it was - will you have to put every piece in exactly as it was?"

"Not necessarily," Vilandra answered, concentrating on the fallen fragments of glass and starting to move them. "Some of the - the little pieces, the molecules, right? Some of them could be broken out of the structures that they're already in, melting the glass essentially, and then resolidifying it in a new shape, without letting the fundamental properties of the silicon structure alter."

"Cool," Liz said, grinning exactly as if she'd never seen anybody do the same thing before.

Meanwhile, Max had found the offending object that had struck him - which turned out to be a small, tightly folded wad of paper. With Valenti's help, he was able to unroll it completely, and read the message that was written on it as if the letters were English in the latin alphabet. (Amazing how well the TARDIS translation field worked, even when the phone box was parked over on the next beach over, he thought.) "Your Castle is under siege," he read aloud, shocked. "The Noble house of Selezir has asked for arbitration in its grievances, and received no hearing. Thus, with this notice, they and their royal allies are declaring a siege. Your mission, which you have no choice but to accept, is either to hold the Castle until sunrise tomorrow morning, or sortie forth and meet the beseiging army on the field of battle. The enemy must reclaim the Jewel of Kindarra before the time limit expires. North Tilles rules of engagement are in effect until then. Message ends."

"What?" Valenti exclaimed. "Somebody's besieging the Castle? I thought that, well, I'm not quite sure what I thought, except that..."

"Relax," Vilandra said, laughing slightly as she handed a restored brown ceramic mug to Liz, who nearly dropped it in her own surprise. "That note is - well, it's not entirely what it seems to be, though it isn't entirely a trick either. More like... like full immersion into the fantasy." She looked out towards the edge of the patio. "I wonder if they knew I was here, or even meant for me to be remaining here as your guide into the conflict."

"Wait a second." Liz shook her head. "Are you trying to say that this is - is a challenge to something like a live-action roleplay, a game that's played according to certain rules but meant to represent an actual combat?" Vilandra paused, and then nodded. "And who's they? Zan, Rath, Ava?"

"Rath and Zan for sure, I would guess," Vilandra agreed. "Rath's family is the noble house of Selezir, and he made a point of mentioning royal allies in the declaration so that members of my family could be on his team, though I suppose if he didn't realize that..." She cocked her head as something occured to her. "No, of course, he must have known that I'd be on the defender's side. The point of the game wouldn't work otherwise, he set it up that way."

"Why's that?" Max asked, and then a possible answer occured to him.

"Because this is the jewel of Kindarra." Vilandra ran her fingers under a white shiny chain hanging from her neck, making the little pendant hanging near her decolletage shift slightly. It was actually a finger-ring hung from the necklace, Max realized, with a gemstone on it that seemed to somehow be red and yellow at the same time, but not any shade of orange in between. "Rath gave it to me, actually, a few months ago - as a sign of our understanding, after he got Father's permission to court my royal self. He would't take it away, not for real. But for a game of siege, it'll make an interesting objective. I'm on your side, except that I can't put myself into the line of fire without risking losing everything."

"Like the Kings in chess," Valenti breathed. "Umm, that's a board game back on Earth, with pieces named after different sorts of people or units in combat."

"You'll have to tell me how to play, later, after this game is done," Vilandra said. "Okay, first thing is we need to figure out who else is on their team."

"No, first thing is that you need to tell us what North Tilles rules of engagement are," Liz countered. "That's the rules for this sort of fake battle, right? Detailing what we can do and can't do without making it more than a game."

"Oh, right," Vilandra said, brightening.

"And I think that somebody might want to play a turncoat and join Rath's team," Max pointed out. "That'd be allowed, right?"

"Umm, seriously playing for the other side, not just trying to spy on them?" Vilandra asked.

"Yes, we don't have to all be on the same team," Liz chimed in. "I'll go and see what people think." She headed immediately for Isabel and Alex's room, obviously having come to the same conclusion that Max had. There would probably come a time when they simply couldn't keep up the 'don't let present and past selves' meet ruse, and would have to remember to simply let it go gracefully and not make it obvious what they were trying to do. At the moment, though, that time didn't seem to have yet arrived.

"Well, should I start the rules with just the two of you, then?" Vilandra asked.

"The rules to what?" Michael asked, opening the sliding door next to Isabel's and sticking his head out. "And what's all the fuss about out here?"

"We've been challenged to a siege war game, by Rath," Max told him. "You and I are in charge of the defense, once we find out what the rules are."

"Interesting," the Doctor said, stepping out of his own room. "I'm not so wild about battle, but I **love** games."

"And in answer to your question, Vilandra," Jim said, "you should probably hold off on explanations until we've found out what our count is. To wit, I'll go and see if Kyle's ready to get up to take part in the mission."

"How long are they going to give us before they attack?" Michael asked Vilandra.

"Since it's your first time, probably an hour after defiance was sent," the princess told him, settling down on a chair to wait.

#

"Got it," Isabel said to Liz after she'd been briefed on the details of the situation, and changed quickly into some day clothes. "I'm with Zan and Rath, and you'll get no mercy from me once I'm accepted as one of their own." She turned to Alex. "Do you wanna come with?"

"Umm." Alex hesitated for a few seconds, then offered her a weak smile. "I'll come if you need the moral support, but otherwise - well, I do have a few questions for her Highness, and this might be my best opportunity to ask them. We don't have to be joined at the hip, do we?"

"Well, no, I suppose. I can think of more interesting ways to make contact anyway," she teased him, and disappeared out the door into the hall. She took the first route downwrads that she could find, a fairly conventional switchback staircase, but on the ground level that led to a point where three dim hallways met. None of them seemed to proceed for long without twisting, and she hesitated, trying to figure out which way to go. "Eeinie meenie... well, I know how this is going to end up," she muttered, and charged down the first passageway that she had counted off as 'eeinie.' Around the sharp twist, she nearly collided into Queen Alinda, who had one silent servitor, or possibly a bodyguard, following her.

"And where are you off to in such a hurry, young lady... umm..." The Queen obviously seemed to be trying to remember one of Isabel's names, and failing gracefully.

"Your majesty," Isabel started, and suddenly something occured to her. "Are you in defense of the Castle?" she asked quietly.

Alinda looked at her guardian, then shook her head slightly. "I support my son in this matter, and His Majesty will not interfere until he must act for the good of all Antar. And you? I have heard that the Time Lord and his friends would be loyal."

"I..." Isabel had meant to say 'I want', but somehow it didn't come out until she tried: "I need to cry sanctuary from Lord Rath in this matter. My brother and my love refuse to let me stand safe with them."

"Really? And why?" Isabel shrugged awkwardly. "Well, let us adjourn to Rath's base camp and see what he says."

"Thank you, Majesty."

"Be not overly grateful yet, Lady Isabel." Alinda led the way back to the intersection, and along a different twisting way.

#

"Do you really expect us to believe that you've been thrown out by your companions?" Prince Zan snapped, seeming truly angry at Isabel. "It's a transparent ploy to plant a spy in our midst. Once you've found our plans for assaulting the Castle, then you'll..."

"You may hold me here as a prisoner of honor, or whatever you call it," Isabel snapped. "I have no intention of returning to the Brok Bay palace until the siege is over in any case. _or_ of attempting to send any message to them, in case you suspect me of that."

"Would you swear that on your honor?" Alinda asked her, and Isabel immediately nodded.

"Would you allow me to touch your mind, to verify this?" Ava asked.

Isabel froze. What could she possibly say to that? "Is - is it alright if I erect barriers around certain parts of my mind and core identity?" she asked. "There are certain secrets that I cannot betray, and would sooner withdraw from this siege entirely rather than reveal."

The beseiging commanders exchanged a series of looks. "That could merely be a further trap," Rath hissed. "If her core identity is hidden, then the public mind that she reveals to us could be merely a facade, a deception to reassure us."

"I think not," Larek countered. "Very few of any species are capable of that sort of constructed schizophrenia, and I think that an Earthling would be less likely to show such a talent than many, since they are said to have no acknowledged psi in their culture."

"I accept your terms, Isabel," Ava said. "But I will not pass you unless I am completely satisfied in what you show me, quantitatively as well as qualitatively. You must reveal as much as you can, to convince me of your sincerity. In return, I will not pass on further what is not relevant to the siege."

"I accept," Isabel muttered, even though a part of her was protesting that she should back out entirely, that this mental touch would complicate their mission and possibly even endanger the present. But somehow, she couldn't bring herself to say anything else as Ava stepped close, took both of her hands, and looked her in the eyes.

A quick barrage of mental impressions flashed through Isabel's mind - Zan in ridiculously formal clothes, in a dim room, possibly the edge of a dance floor, and smiling. A great hall, with Sanren, Alinda, Zan, and Vilandra all seated on thrones of varying decorativeness, and a small delegation standing apart from the crowd, led by an Antarian man with shoulder-length blue black hair and an intensely black gaze. A moonlit gathering out of doors, possibly a wedding, though the faces of the young man and woman who were the focus of the ceremony seemed to be blurred or unclear.

And then she was once again standing in the sun, surrounded by the portable beach furniture of Rath's 'command headquarters,' and staring into Lady Ava's eyes. "She - she is true to her given word," Ava told her fellows. "She will serve our side faithfully in the siege, though for some reason she is chary of seizing the Jewel of Kindarra from Princess Vilandra herself. More than that I cannot say yet."

"Well enough," Rath said, sighing. "Would you have us include her in our war council, then?"

"I might have something to contribute, once you explain the rules of this siege," Isabel pointed out. "I had to leave before Vilandra covered that much."

"I think I would like to speak with the Lady Isabel privately," Ava said more softly. "Excuse me from the council, please. We will watch for scouts coming our way from the Castle, together, and cry warning."

"Not really a job that takes two," Zan muttered under his breath, but he didn't object to Ava's proposal, and Isabel was glad enough to follow Ava away from the beseiger leadership.

"Do you mind if I speak of what I saw in your mind, Isabel?" Ava asked quietly once they were out of easy earshot. "I think I picked up on much that you might rather I didn't, though I can tell that you also did keep some things hidden."

"Yes, I suppose so, though you must be certain not to let the secrets stray further," Isabel said severely. "Even to Prince Zan."

"Of course. At this stage in our relationship, I stil have a secret part of my own mind that he does not hold the keys to, and to this I commit what I have learned from you."

"Thank you," Isabel said, and wondered about what would happen to those secret parts of Ava when she married and became the Queen. Well, it was probably better not to belabor that point now. "What would you wish to speak of?"

"Umm, I'm not sure where to start," Ava said, her cheeks starting to flush a pale orange color. "You - you are from the future, and you know things about Antar's future?"

"Yes," Isabel agreed. "Please understand that I absolutely cannot tell you any details about that. Creating a paradox in the time-space continuum could..."

"No, of course, I understand," Ava said quickly. "Might I ask - how far in the future?"

Isabel hesitated only a second before lying at this point. "Two hundred years, perhaps - I'm not sure of the exact figure. Many generations."

"So everyone living here on Antar, even the babe who was born yesterday, has long died in your time?" Ava asked, and Isabel nodded. It was much better for her to believe that, and Zan, if he ever found out any of the truth about their visit. "Very well, I will move on somewhat. You - you believe that you are part Antarian, yes?"

"I am reasonably certain of it," Isabel said. "Does that mean that you can't trust what you saw of my loyalty to the besiegers?"

Ava laughed a bit wryly. "No, if you could control what I saw when I touched your mind very well, you could have kept me from even seeing this much. You have considerable talents in the Antarian fashion, I believe, especially walking through dreams, but your control is definitely somewhat imperfect. Perhaps that was because you had to learn your abilities nearly by yourselves. Were your Antarian parents not able to raise you as your own children? I clearly saw a mother and father in your mind, and you think of them as entirely Earthling. You haven't even told them about your true nature?"

Isabel swallowed, somewhat overwhelmed by the rapid-fire questions. "No, we - umm, we were found by Earthlings as young children, and didn't even understand that being alien was why we were 'different' at the start. And it was many more years before we realized that we did have a human side to our natures as well, that we were cross-breeds."

"So I was also right in seeing that you aren't the only one of your party with Antarian heritage?" Ava pressed. "Your brother Max, and... and Michael?" Isabel nodded. "What about Liz? I thought I felt a bit of confusion there..."

"Liz was - she was born human," Isabel hedged, wondering if Ava would get it from there. Maybe she expected Lady Ava to, because it had been her namesake, Ava from New York, who had first mentioned the idea of Liz being 'changed' and no longer human after Max saved her life.

But Ava just nodded. "So you have the Time Lord, and three Antarian hybrids, and an Earthling escort for each of them..." She took a moment to add up visitors. "That leaves Miss Tyler, and the Valenti men, yes?"

"Rose is... well, she's been the Doctor's travelling companion for a long time," Isabel explained. "The rest of us only met them a short while ago."

"And you immediately asked him to take you to visit Antar?" Ava asked. "That makes some sense, I suppose, if you grew up on Earth without knowing much about Antarians. But why so far into the past?" Isabel didn't immediately answer, and Ava's face suddenly screwed up as one or more unpleasant answers occured to her about that.

"That was pretty much an accident," Isabel blurted out. "The Time Lords can send their TARDISes through time, but they don't always emerge where they meant to. We were just trying to figure out where and when we'd landed - when we met Larek and you and the little prince on the beach."

"Nice job keeping your cool, then," Ava said with a relieved laugh. "I really did think that you'd come to visit the King and the rest of us on purpose."

"Well, we've gotten used to thinking quickly and reacting on our feet," Isabel admitted.

"Yes, I've seen glimpses of the troubles in your past," Ava agreed softly. "Eathlings who fear visitors from other worlds, or want to control them for their own reasons. Other 'aliens' who decided that you were their enemy, even though all you wanted was to go your own way. And - forgive me, but who was Tess, and what happened to her?"

Isabel coughed several times. She had certainly never wanted Ava to learn enough to be able to ask this question, but at the same time, she didn't really want to evade the truth any more than she had to. "She - she is another half-Antarian hybrid who we were fairly close to for more than a year. She - she became pregnant with Max's baby, though he didn't love her and I don't think that Tess really loved Max, though she wanted to win him away from Liz. That part's really complicated. But - but she left for Antar or some other nearby world, and Max - he wants to find out what's happening with his child."

"Was that when you were trying to go?" Ava asked, and Isabel shrugged. "Okay, well, thank you for telling me a little more about your background, and I think I'd better not pry any longer right now, though I might want to talk with you privately about it a bit more later."

"Thanks, yeah, I think that'll be okay," Isabel told her. "I'm going to need to tell my friends about this, that you know some of our secrets, and so maybe they'll be willing to talk to you about it too." Or maybe it would be better not to involve too many people, Isabel thought silently to herself, since that would probably increase the chance of somebody telling Ava a wrong thing by mistake. "Umm, if you're done, do you mind if I ask a question of my own? I did get a few flashes, impressions from your mind, when you touched me."

"I'm not surprised at that, now," Ava answered. "But just one question, then I should start actually telling you about the siege." There was a moment's pause. "I'm kidding, ask of me however much you wish."

"No, I think one question and then we get to the business at hand makes some sense," Isabel agreed. "I'm just trying to figure out how to phrase it. Let's see... one image I got involved a sort of a throne room, with the royal family all sitting to hold an audience or something like that. And the people who they were approaching the throne - well, one person in particular, a very - striking man with a lot of presence, dark hair and eyes. Do you have any idea who that was, just based on my description?"

Ava shuddered violently. "Kivar Andraikus," she whispered. "That scene was many months ago originally, but I dreamed of it in the middle of the night and woke up, so I guess that's why it was close enough to the surface of my mind for it to leak through. Striking, presence, and dark are all good words to describe Kivar, but 'please may I leave the room' is another phrase that comes to mind."

Isabel tried not to show that a dark chill had settled on her from the moment Ava mentioned the name. "So you haven't spent much time near him? I suppose I can understand it, if the guy creeps you out that much."

"No, I've only met him a few times, in social settings, and I wish it were fewer," Ava admitted. "But unfortunately even the King cannot simply order him away from court. Kivar has many powerful friends."

"Alright, so what about this game?" Isabel asked, glad enough of an excuse to change the subject.


	16. Chapter 16

"So overall, this does sound like a game or sport we have back on Earth, capture the flag - well, at least a little," Max said once Vilandra had recounted the rules of the 'siege' that Lord Rath and Prince Zan had challenged them to. "Except that only we have a flag that they need to capture - that pendant that Rath gave you."

"Which I hope that he'll actually have the decency to give back after he wins," Maria grumped, but the Princess smiled pleasantly back at her.

"And we just have until sunset to play defense," Michael summarized. "If we can protect the jewel of Kindarra until then, or incapacitate all the rebels, then we win. What about - umm, using Antarian powers?"

"Only kinesis - moving people or things with the power is allowed, except that you can't actually injure an opponent," Vilandra recounted. "That's a serious foul, even if powers aren't involved, so you can't strike anybody or pick up a weapon to use against them." She considered. "That may be a serious disadvantage for us, since none of you have kinesis."

"Actually, maybe we're not as deprived in that respect as Rath and Zan might think," Max said, reaching out a hand to one of the mugs on the table and letting it rise about two feet into the air, and float there.

Vilandra's eyes widened. "Can - can all of you..."

"No, just... just Max, Michael - and I can do it a little," Liz replied. "Oh, and Isabel can too." She looked over at Kyle, but though he had been practicing with some alien powers lately, he had never been able to master kinesis or levitation at all. He made a face at her.

"Doesn't that mean that they'll find out, soon or already?" Rose asked. "I mean, if Isabel's gone and joined the enemy?"

"I'm not sure," Alex said thoughtfully. "When they get to that part of the explanations, she'll volunteer her own abilities, like Max just did. They're similar enough in that respect. Whether she'll tell them that some of the rest of us have such talents, I'm not so sure about."

"You told me," Vilandra pointed out.

"But it's more important strategic information for our side," Mister Valenti said. "And - even if she doesn't make that clear, they might guess that some of us can match her abilities... or maybe that all of us do, which would make them overestimate our defensive readiness, and only you'd be able to guess what their response to that would be, your Highness." He sighed. "So if neither side can hurt the other, how can we incapacitate any of our enemies?"

"Just bondage," Vilandra said, and Maria snickered. "It's perfectly legal to tie someone up in any way you can - by levitating them first, grappling them, or tricking them."

"But for somebody like Rath or Zan, that's got to be very tricky," Kyle protested, "unless we can overwhelm them with numbers. They have strong kinetic powers of their own, right - and they seem physically powerful, and not idiots."

"Yeah, that's the fun part," Vilandra said with a little smile. "I'm not entirely sure who they've recruited, but I think that we have the advantage of numbers here in this room, even if we can't get anybody else here in the palace to take our part." She considered. "Maybe we should practice the bondage part, if you haven't had experience with that before." This time, it was Alex, Michael, and Kyle, who broke out laughing. "What's so funny about that word?"

"Umm - it's one of these lost in translation things, I suppose," Liz said, flushing brightly. "Not sure if it's at all the same thing for you, but in English, the word 'bondage' usually refers to - to intimate activities between two people in the bedroom - or occasionally more than two, I suppose..."

"Oh. I didn't realize." Vilandra pondered that. "You can have sex while tied up?"

"When, umm, when one person is tied up, yeah," Kyle mumbled. "Especially if they're, well, if they're naked first."

"Ahh, yeah, I suppose that would work," Vilandra agreed, with a slightly wicked gleam in her eyes. "But, well, rope tricks, then - is that anything with a double meaning for you?"

"I - I guess it'll do," Max said with a sigh. "We can practice, sure, but what about other strategy. Where should we be defending you? I suppose it makes sense to have some guards spread out - even if one guard by him or herself won't be able to stand against the rebel forces."

"Yes," Vilandra agreed, looking out from the balcony over the courtyards of the Brok bay palace and the tall grasslands beyond it. "It's a shame, because the weather's so perfect today and I'd like to stay out here on the balcony, but you're right that it's pretty exposed. Hmm... I'm not sure what the most defensible place that we could actually use as our headquarters would be, though. The palace has really been designed to be airy and open, which works against us in a situation like this."

"Can Rath use his powers to sense you at all, sense your mind?" Liz asked her. "I mean, both practically, and in terms of the siege rules? If he has the ability naturally, I think it'd be hard for anyone to prove a foul if it's against the rules of the siege, actually."

"Possibly, and yes," Vilandra said. "Informational uses of powers aren't a foul, no, but I think I could fuzz out his awareness of me, or Zan's. A bit like using a cloud to hide the location of a bright light."

"Could you create fake lights, in places where you're not?" Alex asked. "That would be of more use to us, I think."

"Hmm... yes, the possibilities are interesting," Vilandra admitted. "You're adapting to this kind of thing easily. Are you sure that you don't have mental powers of your own?"

"No, just in the habit of helping Isabel out with hers," Alex said. "Well, are there any maps of the palace building? We should be able to go through some possibilities on that, more quickly than actually going from place to place."

"Maps?" Vilandra seemed confused by that question for a moment. "Of course, umm..." She looked around as if half-expecting to see a map on one of the tables on the balcony, and then immediately focused on the rooms. "Can I use one of your..."

"Sure, anything," Alex said, gesturing to the door to his and Isabel's room, though he wasn't entirely sure what the alien princess had in mind. She got up and hurried into the bedroom, sitting down at the small desk-like piece of furniture that he hadn't really paid much attention to during all the other events of arrival and the first night of their stay at Brok Bay. Alex circled around Vilandra to sit on the edge of the king-plus sized bed, and Max and Liz stepped into the room as well and stood near the door. All three of them were surprised when Vilandra tapped a particular spot near the back right corner of the desktop, and a bright blue whirlpool galaxy icon coalesced out of thin air, floating flat about an inch above the surface of the desk.

"An integrated computer terminal?" Liz asked softly, and Vilandra shot an 'of course' sort of look at her. (It was remarkable how much facial expressions like that seemed to be much the same between pure Antarians, humans, and those in between - and even Time Lords, when it came to that.) "Well, we have the same thing in our room, and I guess I thought it was just an ordinary desk, a piece of furniture made out of wood or something like it, that you can write on the top of, or put a mechanical or electronic device on top of to work it, with storage drawers."

"Hmm - probably our desks started as the same sort of thing," Vilandra said thoughtfully. "Since people associated them with work, they were a natural place to build computer interfaces for utility and productivity applications." She swiped her fingers through one side of the whirlpool, and said: "Confirm voice access pattern."

"Access confirmed for Princess Vilandra Liaret. How may I be of assistance, your highness?" the computer asked her in a smooth baritone voice.

"Show me a floor plan map of the Brok bay palace - each level seperately I suppose, with color coding to indicate stairs, ramps, and other points of access between different floors," Vilandra said. It took only a few seconds before the schematics appeared vertically above the desktop, replacing the horizontal projection of the whirlpool.

"Seriously slick computer system," Alex breathed. "Okay, this is going to take a bit more time to figure out than I thought." Seen all at once like this, the palace grounds were even more complex than they had seen when approaching the building. "Any idea where Rath will make his base camp?"

"A few notions," Vilandra admitted, "but he might try to confound me - and there's no guarantee that he'll be attacking from that direction, instead of circling around." She sighed, considering the map. "We'll have to pick someplace that's pretty much equally defensible from every direction."

#

"I know Vilandra," Rath insisted, tapping the blue wooden surface of the TARDIS phone box idly and then leaning against it. "It won't occur to her to leave the balcony, or if she does she won't go far, and probably not down - your rooms, or one of the rooms on the other side of that corridor, like the chamber where you girls had your dinner last night. The area's not perfectly defensible, but that won't occur to her until too late."

"You may know the princess, but I know my friends," Isabel countered. "Once the rules of the siege are explained to them, they'll think about defensibility, and somebody will be able to convince her highness to abandon the balcony area. By the time we get there, they could be anywhere in the palace."

"I think she may have a point, Rath," Zan said. "The more time we give them, the better they'll be able to fortify my dear sister's hiding place, while we can't really increase the strength of our offensive by spending more time in preparations for it. By al means, we should make sure that we're ready for action, but as soon as that can be done, let us to the field of battle!"

"Hear, hear," Larek chimed in, and Isabel turned to look at him, once again wondering how much of this he'd remember in sixty years. They hadn't really planned for anybody who was still active in Antarian cluster politics in their own time to be here at Brok Bay - except for Queen Alinda. Maybe it had been foolish not to expect that Zan and Larek would be separable at this time,though.

"Well, once you get close to the castle, you should be able to sense Vilandra's mind, right guys?" Ava asked, and both Rath and Zan nodded. "Then it seems to me that you should both be in our primary raiding party, which should be as strong as we can make it - no splitting up and allowing them to divide and destroy us. Well - perhaps one small suicide soldier should come from a different direction, to create a diversion." She looked meaningfully at Isabel.

"Sure, I'm up for that," Isabel said. "I'm probably the most expendable out of the six of us."

"Good," Zan said, nodding. "Any thoughts which route you should take, soldier?"

Isabel smiled to herself. "Exactly where we'd all go if we thought they were stupid - to the last place we knew they were. The balcony, and from there to the rooms on the corridor there. If they don't have any rear guards in that area, I'll just..." She drew a blank on the castle interior layout. "I'll just wander around trying to attract the attention of the defenders in any way that I can, I suppose."

"Good luck, Isabel," Ava said, reaching out and holding Isabel's fingers in her own for a moment. Isabel flinched, expecting another connection flash, but realized after the moment was over that Ava had somehow been able to block out such a mental intimacy, leaving only normal skin to skin touch.

"You too," Isabel replied. Making friends with the Antarian lady Ava had not been at all what she'd expected when they came here, but it seemed that it was happening anyway.

It felt odd to be going into battle this way, on her own and without any sort of a weapon, though considering that many of her 'enemies' in this fighting would be her oldest friends, Isabel decided that she didn't really want to have anything available to hand to beat on them with. The rest of the 'attacking rebels' moved out of base camp at the same time that she did, but they would be staying under cover of the strips of forest trees for a little while, so that they would only emerge when Isabel's diversion had been noticed. This, at least, had been the plan, and a necessary one.

Nobody really seemed to be paying much attention as Isabel hiked her way across the white beach sand towards the palace grounds again, jogging for short stretches whenever she felt up to it. After only one missed turning, she found her way to the stairs up to the balcony outside their room. Nobody was sitting at any of the tables, though it looked as if the area had been abandoned quickly, with dishes and half-eaten breakfast foods still in evidence.

Isabel loitered around, snacking on long skinny yellow cakes, and trying to make it look as if she were investigating the scene for clues of some sort, though that really wasn't right for this game anyway. Then one of the doors slid open, and she looked up with her mouth full of cake. "Well, look who's come back?" Kyle drawled.

Isabel took a long moment to finish swallowing as gracefully as she could manage under the circumstances. "You know why I'm here, Kyle," she muttered, trying to make the words sound as intimidating as possible. "Are you the rear guard they left behind, to see if anybody came here looking for the Princess first?"

"Nobody left me behind," Kyle put in. "I thought it would be a good idea to stay close."

"Well, that remains to be seen," Isabel said, swaggering towards him just slightly. "You may have some trace of alien abilities, but they won't serve you here. I can make sure that you don't get a warning out."

"Then why don't you go ahead and tie me up?" Kyle smirked.

Isabel kept up her threatening glare, even though inside she was worried that Kyle had seen through the whole ploy. She **wanted** Kyle to cry the alarm, so that reinforcements would be drawn here, out of position for guarding the Princess Vilandra, However, if Kyle already guessed that, then she suspected that she wouldn't be able to bluff him into going along with the plan.

"Because it's more important to throw things at you first," Isabel tried, picking up a cup from the table and chucking it in his direction - not close enough that it might actually make contact, because that might be a foul, but close enough that it might be startling if he hadn't expected it.

As the cup shattered against the wall, Isabel felt dizzy for a moment, and by the time she had recovered from the vertigo, Kyle was pointing his palm at her. A faint yellow-green pulse of energy shot from his hand into Isabel's thigh, and her entire left leg went weak and tingly, as if she'd been sitting cross-legged and it had gone to sleep. "Hey!" she cried, grabbing for one of the chairs to help support herself and make sure that she didn't lose her balance entirely. "I _cry foul_! No using powers other than kinesis, and I didn't even know that you'd learned a trick like that. Did Michael or Max teach it you?"

"You don't ask the questions, Princess," Kyle snarled. "I want the jewel and I want it now." In a few steps, he was next to her and had grabbed Isabel's shoulders in his hands, shaking her back and forth slightly in that demeaning way that always seemed to happen to plucky heroines in books. "Where did you hide it?"

"This - this is all wrong," she protested. "I'm not the Princess with the jewel, and I'm working with the rebels to steal it from her. You're one of the defenders, trying to keep the Princess safe from us."

"I'm not falling for your tricks, Princess," Kyle told her shortly, with another little shake for emphasis, and squeezing her upper arms so hard that it was uncomfortable. "Your room - which one is yours?"

"Come on, Kyle, you know very well which room is mine," Isabel said, staring him in the eyes - and then, if she hadn't been held up by Kyle's arms, she really would have reeled in astonishment, because there was no real recognition of her in there. What was going on? "Okay, okay, it's the last door over here, this way," she said, pointing in the right way.

"Lead the way," Kyle told her gruffly, pushing her in the appropriate direction, which nearly had her sprawling on the tiles of the balcony because her leg still had very little strength left in it. With a bit of effort, she managed to push herself towards the wall between Maria's door and Liz's with her good leg, and use that to prop her up. (Or, alternatively, they could be Michael's and Max's doors, or any other appropriate combination.) Using one hand on the doors or walls to support some of her weight, she managed to hobble over to her own room, and open the door, while Kyle glared at her distrustfully.

He followed quickly after her when she entered, though, so that she had no chance to close the door behind her. He was so close that Isabel considered trying to turn around and touch him, overstimulate his nerves and then push him with mental kinesis. In the end, though, her nerve failed her and she lost her chance. Whatever had happened to Kyle, this new persona of hers truly scared Isabel, and she wasn't sure which worried her more, that Kyle might hurt her while he was like this, or that Isabel might hurt Kyle and have to face that when he got back to being himself. Or, then, what if he never did come back to the Kyle that she had generally not liked that much, but...

"Okay, darling, where's the jewelry box?" Kyle demanded of her.

"Well, back home, on Earth!" she snapped, and immediately added, "I'm not the one who's trying to play games here, Kyle! I don't really understand what you want of me, and I'm trying to co-operate. If - if you want to see what little jewelry I packed to bring with me, I can get out the suitcase and show it to you. Is that what you want?"

"I... I don't know, so let's give it a try," Kyle muttered, and so Isabel picked up the small airline suitcase with its wheels and extending and handle and all, set it on the bed, and opened up the smallest little flap pocket in the front panel. Kyle pushed her aside again, made a point of checking through the rest of the suitcase first, as if he expected her to lead him the wrong way, and then considered the small collection of golden chains and charms that had been in that small pocket. Finally he withdrew a long necklace with a cloudy green stone held in a golden framework that allowed it to be seen from every side. "Did you think that I wouldn't recognize this when I saw it among the others, like a purloined letter?"

Something snapped furiously inside Isabel at the thought that this - this stranger wearing Kyle's face and body might take the necklace from her, over whatever crazy misunderstanding, believing that she was Princess Vilandra, and he was getting the gem of whatever that was the point of the siege. Alex had bought her that necklace for her nineteenth birthday, and she loved it. The stone was a peridot, and as her adopted birthday fell into the Libra astrological sign, it was her Zodiac birthstone.

Isabel put her hands together and then pushed them apart, using each one to channel a seperate wave of kinetic force. The effect should have torn Kyle and the necklace apart, sending the stone towards the hallway door and Kyle's body hurling out onto the balcony. But though her alien powers lifted them both off the ground, some opposite force was in effect to keep Kyle's hand strongly gripping the golden chain, and probably reinforcing every weak point so that neither the necklace nor Kyle's bones broke under the strain. After a few seconds, most of Isabel's powers could not maintain the full strain of pulling at full strength against those bonds, though she kept him floating with some effort.

And at that moment, the door flung open, and King Sanren Liaret was there, royal indignation clinging to him. "What the tarnation is all this?" he bellowed. "I don't object too strongly to the siege gaming, but do you Earthlings not understand the concept of the fouls?"

A new expression flickered over Kyle's face, a fear and apprehension that he hadn't shown when dealing only with Isabel. Lifting his free hand as he floated, Kyle started to let loose the paralysis bolts again. Isabel saw the King get tagged near the side of his waist, and growl in outrage. Then she was shot in the center of her collar, and the effects travelled almost instantly down her spine and up into her brain stem. She blacked out immediately.

#

"This is getting to be a bit much," Alex muttered, when the healers finally let him into the room that he'd shared last night, and he finally caught a glimpse of Isabel. She seemed to be sleeping comfortably on her back, but he looked over at the blue-robed Antarian for reassurance. "You're sure that she..."

There was a pause, and instead of speaking, the healer started to indicate something with a series of hand gestures that Alex couldn't make anything of. Just at that moment, though, Prince Zan stepped into the room, and after watching the gestures for a moment, he nodded. "Yes, her - her nervous system has been through a shock, but she's alright, and she's resting. She might not wake up for many hours, but it'd do her good for you to hold her hand and for her to hear familiar voices."

"Oh." Alex pulled the desk chair towards Isabel's side, and it bumped into her suitcase, which was lying askew on the floor, with a few pieces of jewelry strewn over and around it. Rather than bothering with cleaning it up right then, he sat down on the chair where it was, reached out for Isabel's hand, couldn't quite reach it, and settled for putting his hand on the bedcovers, feeling her knee underneath them. "What, umm, what's the deal with the sign language?"

"Oh." Zan blinked slightly. "Many of the most talented healers on Antar belong to a group called the Avernists. They don't speak aloud during the daytime, from sunrise to sunset."

"Huh, that's interesting," Alex said, smiling slightly. "Is it a religious vow, something that they have promised to God because they think he wants it, or for some other reason?"

Zan looked over at the healer, who just shrugged enigmatically and left the room. Both young men chuckled as Maria came inside. "I don't know that much about them - the Avernists are a semi-religious organization I think, at least they say that they believe in something called 'the Divine Universe,' and they learn, teach, and practice their art according to the details of their belief in that divinity. And the silence deal is something along the lines of a province, but I'm not sure if it's something that they promise to the universe for religious reasons, or to each other in more practical ways... or what. Maybe we can ask them - tonight, after sunset." He sighed. "Were you having some problems with the chair, Alex? Could I help?"

Alex shook his head and sighed. "No need - your highness. I'll get it myself." And so he bent down and managed to get Isabel's suitcase safely on the desktop, hoping that it wouldn't set off some dangerous computer circuit there, and gathered up the jewelry in his hands before pushing his chair closer to Isabel and taking her hand. "Do you know anything more about what happened now?"

"Not really," Zan admitted. "I didn't sense the psychic presence this time, any more than I did last time, but - well, you were there when my mother and Liz seemed to recognize at the same moment that something was wrong on the other side of the palace." Alex nodded. That had been after some serious fighting between the defenders and the rebels, after Michael had escorted Princess Vilandra away from the fighting. "Neither of them really sensed anything specific, just scenes of a warrior and a princess that seemed like they might be drawing from the siege itself. Father, when he came into the room, he says he thought that they were just playing rough, not understanding the rules - and he got hit with a kind of a neural disruptor blast, stunned thoroughly enough that he didn't see your friend leave."

"That part almost worries more than Isabel being knocked out," Maria breathed. Alex looked up and shot death ray eyes at her. "I mean, obviously what happened to Isabel is serious, but at least the healers have been able to check her over and everything. We don't know what happened to Kyle, why he might have been fighting with her, and what posessed him to run off like that."

"Except for the hints that it might be something like what happened to Rose last night," Alex agreed dully. "And if so, then 'posessed' might be very much the key word. I never used to believe in hauntings or anything of the sort, but that's what this looks like more and more. A malevolent spirit, posessing earthlings who don't have the strength to fight it off - which means that you and I are vulnerable to the effect too."

"I don't know the earthling stories about that sort of thing," Zan started carefully, "and though many things are possible with Antarian powers, a spirit that continues to survive with a body is something that's hardly ever even rumoured of. If a - a ghost was posessing Kyle, then does it make sense to you that it should give him the ability to shoot neural disruptor blasts?"

There was a long pause. "Hell with it, we've got to tell them now," Maria muttered. "It could be important now." Alex shrugged, still holding tightly to Isabel's hand, as if he could squeeze his own life into her.

There was a short pause. "Tell me what?" Zan asked quietly. "It might not have to go any further than the three of us."

"Kyle was - I think he was practicing something like those blasts, back on Earth," Maria muttered. "Michael was teaching him."

Zan considered this for a moment again. "So were we wrong in thinking that humans were incapable of anything like our - our unique natural powers?"

"No, most humans - certainly aren't," Alex insisted. "Kyle, and Liz - they were. No, I should probably back up." He took a deep breath. "Promise me that you won't tell the others what they don't need to know?"

"I promise," Zan said softly. "Though Ava might already have figured out some of this, actually."

"Ava?" Maria asked. "How?"

"We - well, we weren't sure of Isabel when Alinda brought her out to rebel headquarters, thought she might have been a spy for your side instead of a sincere volunteer to the rebel cause." Zan laughed hollowly. "It's funny how that doesn't seem to matter anymore now. Anyway - we agreed that Ava would connect with her, to touch her mind, and Ava vouched for Isabel, but also said that she'd learned some things that were none of our business. The two of them went off to talk about thing privately for a little while."

"What a tangled web we might weave, when we try to keep secrets," Alex said with a slight smile. "Well, yes, Ava might have picked up some of this, if they connected. Max and Isabel are - they're part Antarian, though they're not sure who their parents were exactly. Max - he has the healer's gift, and he saved Liz's life when she was at the point of death. The same thing happened to Kyle - that he was shot and nearly died, and Max brought him back, nearly a year later. We don't really understand how, but it seems that somehow each of them was changed by that near-death experience, that they're not entirely human anymore, and have some traces of Antarian powers now. That's probably why Liz is sensitive to these psychic manifestations, whatever they really are."

"Okay," Zan said. "And why didn't you want to tell me about this before?" Zan asked.

"It seemed like it might become awkward," Maria said. "I mean, what if you were able to trace Max and Isabel's father - and find out that he was an outlaw, wanted by the crown?"

"Do you think that we'd really throw them into prison for the literal sins of their father?" Zan asked incredulously, and both of them shrugged. "Well, maybe you didn't really know what to expect from us. And I will respect your secrets, since I so promised."

"That's as well," a soft British voice intoned, and everybody looked up to see the Doctor, who had appeared at the balcony door without a sound. "At this point, I want to know what's causing these psychic manifestations, and I want to know ten minutes ago - except that would bring its own share of headaches." He laughed without any humour at all.

"What about finding Kyle and making sure that he's... well, doing whatever we can to care for him?" Zan asked.

"Your father is organizing the search party," the Doctor told him. "Kyle's father and Rose are going along - on the grounds that those who are closest to him might be able to help trained Antarians sense his mind. Following the low-level connection between minds that share an affinity, as it were."

"What about - well, I suppose out of all us kids, Liz has known him the longest," Maria suggested. "Maybe she could help."

"I think that too many possible affinities would just confuse the trail, not make it clearer," Zan said. "Rose is - is the one who is closest to him at the moment?"

The Doctor made a bit of a face, and Alex snickered. "They've only known each other for a few days really, since the Doctor first came to us," Maria said. "She's been travelling with him for a lot longer. But - well, there have been a few signs of a whirlwind romance developing."

"I think I understand," Zan said. "Very well - Doctor, is there anything I can do to help with your investigations?"

"I hardly know where to begin," the Doctor said, looking troubled. "Which is very unusual for me, actually. Kyle reacted when he was somewhere in the palace, we have to assume, with Isabel probably close by. Rose had her own episode when driving back from the ruined stones, with Kyle and Vilandra and Rath."

"Is the locale important?" Alex asked.

"Until we know more, anything might be a factor," Zan put in.

"Then - maybe it started at the foursquare cubes," Maria suggested. "And Kyle brought it back with him somehow, but didn't react until some other stimulus triggered it."

"We need to investigate further," the Doctor decided. "Both at the cube monument, and here around the palace." He looked around. "Lord Zan, will you be my guide to the monument?"

"Certainly," Zan agreed. "And what of the two of you?"

"Alex should stay here and wait to see how Isabel's doing," Maria put in. "I'd be happy to team up with you again on another investigation, Doctor, but perhaps I should take charge of poking into the skeletons in the closets here."

"There aren't any remains of the dead in our... oh, is that an Earthling idiom?" Zan asked sheepishly. Maria nodded. "What's the meaning, just ugly secrets?"

"There are a lot of different interpretations, but that'll probably do for now," Alex said. "I - I don't have to stay here..."

"Yes, you do, Alex," the Doctor told him kindly. "We'll figure it out so that nobody else has to get hurt like Isabel did."

"Alright." Alex sighed, and stroked Isabel's fingers with his own. "You'll tell us if there's any news, right?"

"Of course, Alex," Maria said, smiling at him. "You'll be the first person I run to."

"Hmm..." Zan considered as the three of them filed out of the bedroom. "I wonder if Rath is distracted enough that I'd be able to steal the control stick for his fin-car."

#

"It's Rose, right?" Ava said, making eye contact across the back of the air-van, which had bench seats down the left and right sides and an empty space in the middle that could hold cargo without needing to move anything out of the way. "We haven't really had much of a chance to get to know each other, aside from meeting on the beach yesterday, but..."

"No, we haven't I suppose," Rose said. "And yes, that's me, obviously. Sorry, I'm trying to deal with all of this as best I can, but it's just starting to get a bit much." She drew in a ragged breath and tried not to let it sound like a sob.

"I understand," Ava said softly. "I'm not trying to make things harder on you, but - has it occured to you that from what little we know about Kyle's running away, it just might have something to do with - with your experience on the way back from the foursquare cubes last night?"

"Well of course I saw the possibility, I'm not an idiot," Rose grumbled. Jim Valenti looked up from where he'd been contemplating the floor of the van near the doors and looked a bit reproachfully at her. "Sorry, I didn't mean to be short there, but yes - I've seen the similarities and it doesn't make me feel any better. I don't even know what happened to myself, and it's certainly not like anything that I tried to..."

"Of course, of course," Ava assured her. "I - I just wish I knew a way to find out more about it, to explore your subconscious memories of what happened last night with your powers, but - well, try as I might, I can't think of a way that I or anybody else at Brok Bay could do something like that. Somebody could try walking into your dreams, but there's no guarantees that you'd be dreaming of anything relevant."

"What we need is a hypnotist," Jim commented with a rueful laugh, as if he could hardly believe how prepostorous the notion was. Rose shot him a dirty look back, but Ava seemed to be intrigued.

"What would one of those do?" she asked. "What is it?"

"It's a who," Rose explained. "A friend of me mum used to say that she had a college degree in hypnosis, but as far as I could tell it never really worked. The idea is that just by talking to somebody, and encouraging them to relax, you could encourage them into a suggestible state, and leave ideas that would stay with them even after they 'woke up from the trance state', or even get them to remember things that they'd consciously forgot, or regress into past lives."

"And before you say it," Jim grumbled, "no, this stuff doesn't really work on the poor pitiful little Earthlings, it's just a notion that people keep spreading because, well, really I'm not sure why, but..."

"Actually, I was thinking that it seemed an interesting idea, and why shouldn't it work?" Ava said. "Not necessarily the same way all the time, because people and their minds are complicated, but we react to what other people say to us in a lot of ways that we're not consciously aware of or in control of. That would seem to be obvious on the face of it. It's not something that Antarians would tend to think of lately, though - with so much emphasis on the use of mental powers, I guess that just influencing each other with words and tones of voice has passed out of vogue." She sighed. "None of your friends that came with you know anything about this hypnosis stuff?"

Rose shrugged helplessly. "If the Doctor's picked some of it up over his hundreds of years of time-travelling with humans, then he's never mentioned anything to me about it," she said. "I'd feel a bit silly asking him what he thought of it, but if you think this is so important, then I guess I should try."

"No, it wouldn't have to be you, Rose," Jim told her. "Especially not if you're the one who's to be hypnotized - I can see how that might be awkward for you. In terms of the Roswellian contingent - Maria might have read a book about it. I'm pretty sure that her mother's got some around." Jim sighed. "I can certainly ask her, and I'll volunteer for asking the Doctor if I get a chance too."

"Alright," Ava said. "But - well, maybe we should stop worrying about this stuff and focus on the stated reason that we're out here." She shifted down the seat. "Do you mind if I try sensing through you first, Mister Valenti? You've known Kyle the longest."

"No. It's weird, that after talking about hypnosis, this alien powers stuff seems easier to deal with." Jim sighed. "How does this work - I just let you touch my hand and let you do your thing? Should I try to focus on Kyle, or keep my mind blank, or what?"

"Thinking of him will probably help," Ava said, smiling. "Thinking back on long-ago memories of him, if you can, happy times, and not letting yourself dwell on any worries you're feeling at the moment. Ready?"

Jim nodded as Ava took his hand, and let the flood of memories overwhelm him.

#

"I have to admit," Vilandra complained, "I'm not really sure what we're supposed to be looking for."

"I'm not either, really," Maria agreed, and looked over to Max to see if he had any ideas. Both of them shrugged. "Anything weird, with unexpected implications on alien powers, that could possibly explain all the psychic manifestations around here lately."

"There really isn't anything weird around here," Rath complained as he opened the door to a ladder shaft that appeared to lead down into the basement of the palace. "Aside from the foursquare cubes, but it's Liz, Zan, and the Doctor who've gone to check them out. The entire palace is entirely normal - that's why the royal family uses it as a getaway place, after all. The King's ordinary job is weird enough that he doesn't want more of it when he's off on vacation."

"Wait a second," Max said, as he took hold of the ladder and started to follow Rath down. "Maybe we're going about this entirely the wrong way. What if it isn't about the palace, but about the royalty. Sanren isn't an ordinary man - I don't think that he's doing any of this to his guests deliberately, but what if it's something that was targeted on him, or on his family, that went awry? Has anybody who isn't exactly friendly visited the palace in the last few days?"

"Umm, day before yesterday, there was this guy who I didn't recognize," Vilandra said. "Father didn't seem terribly pleased that he'd dropped by. But I don't think that means that he's done something to give us 'hauntings' or whatever."

"No, but it means that he's a promising suspect, whoever he is," Maria suggested. "We just need to figure out who he was, why he might have wanted to do this, and how?"

"Is that all?" Rath said. "I think that you're following quite a chain of assumptions. What if all of this nonsense has to do with the Time Lord, say, and travelling in his little box?"

"No," Maria insisted. "He wouldn't have taken us with him if the TARDIS was dangerous to humans. And Rose has been travelling with him for - well, for years anyway, so it's quite a coincidence if it's happened to her and Kyle at just the same time."

"Does this TARDIS usually take quite so many people on board?" Vilandra asked.

"No, I don't think so," Max said under his breath. "Well, I suppose we might ask him if there's any possibility of a connection, but I don't want anybody to press him further than that on the subject. You don't know him like we do."

"Just how well do you know him, Max?" Rath asked.

Max didn't bother answering, partly because he realized that they were all standing in a dark passageway, that looked something like he would have thought of as a 'catacomb.' "What is this place, anyway?"

"Just the brandy vault," Vilandra told him idly. "Don't try to sneak a sample - I don't think it agrees with Earthlings."

"Yeah, how would you know, anyway?" Rath asked.

"I pay attention to my tutors - sometimes."

"Well, no ghosts down here that I can see," Maria said, peering into the shadows as Max made a soft light with his hand. "Where to next?"

Rath chuckled. "Well, there's always the foundations. Maybe some poor soul got accidentally buried alive in the liquid cement."

Max sighed. "Lead on, MacSelezir."


	17. Chapter 17

"So these are the foursquare cubes?" the Doctor said, as the fin-car drew up at the ancient monument.

"If you want to call them that," Zan said with a little chuckle. "They've had a lot of names over the years, but seldom called that until my friends and I came around, at least."

"It'll do for us, for now," Liz decided, hopping out of the car. "So, what next, Doctor? Should we start looking for a secret passage down into an underground chamber or something?"

"Well, that would certainly be interesting and worth investigating if we should happen to blunder across any such thing," the Doctor said with a smile, "but I think that the tip of the iceburg is enough for us to be examining at this point."

"Meaning, the cubes themselves?" Michael asked. He hadn't wanted to come out to see the cubes with them, but had reluctantly come along at the last possible moment after realizing that Maria and Max would be searching the castle with Vilandra and Rath. He still didn't want to spend much time with his opposite number. "How exactly do we search them?"

"Not with a ladder and a magnifying glass," the Doctor told him with a laugh. "Your highness, is it true that these cubes are just the visible protrusion of longer shafts of rock that go deep underground?"

"Yes, that's what we were always told, and you can see it sometimes in the spring after a hard rain - the clay soil drops away, eroded, but the cubes still go down - as deep as we can test, anyway."

"Hmm." The Doctor considered two of the stones that were closest, and stepped in between the narrow space between them. "I almost feel a little foolish trying this, but it's the only thing I can think of that might help shed light on the situation."

"I advise against touching the stones," Zan warned him. "They sometimes react by discharging dangerous psychic energy."

"Dangerous to Antarians, or to humans, yes," the Doctor replied. "As a Time Lord, my tolerance for such a discharge is much, much higher. I'm not worried." He cocked his head, considering something. "Just on the off-chance, though, that my appearance should change drastically, though - don't be alarmed, and let me rest. It's a Time Lord thing." And with that, before any of the others could stop him, he raised his arms out to either side, touching the two great stone cubes at the same time, and drew in a deep breath.

"Are - are you okay, Doctor?" Michael asked.

"Not - not exactly," the Doctor said, his face quirking slightly. "The physical energies involved are hardly that intense, but - but there seems to be a resonance of the mental frequencies involved that - that I might be losing myself in. I - I need an anchor, and quickly..."

"I can handle that, I think," Liz said, stepping forward, and surprising herself with her confidence. "Look into my eyes, Doctor, concentrate on them. I will be your anchor - if you just stay with me, I will keep you in the here and now, or - or at least, keep enough of you here that you can find your way back."

The Doctor met her stare and smiled, though Liz had to fight not to stagger with the intensity of the Time Lord's gaze. "Thank you - very much, Miss Parker, that was exactly what the situation called for. I'll - I'll be back with you entirely in just a moment, just..." he drifted off, apparently deep in thought.

"Don't close your eyes on me, Doctor," Liz called warningly, for his eyelids did seem to be fluttering slightly.

"I'm not going to," the Doctor promised her. "It's just a little difficult, trying to absorb all of this without letting my eyes close." He took several more rapid breaths.

"Maybe you shouldn't be trying to absorb it all, however tempting that is," Michael put in. "That could be where you're getting into trouble."

The Doctor breathed rapidly several more times, let one of his arms drop first, and turned to look at the other hand that was still flat against one of the cubes. He stared at his own fingers as if completely surprised that such a thing could exist in the universe.

"Is it stuck to the cube, Doctor?" Zan called, sounding worried.

"Just a moment." The Doctor stepped back away from the cube that he was still touching, and his hand came back just as easily as you might expect it too. "Ooh." The Doctor immediately started rubbing that hand with the other.

"I think that the nerves in my hand weren't responding," the Doctor said, peering at it. "As long as it was in contact. Oh, well."

"So - what did you sense?" Liz asked him, reaching out her hand as if to pull the Doctor away from the cubes before he could make contact again.

"There's a considerable psychic resonance in these cubes," the Doctor said slowly, "and a lot of history, but nothing at all active enough to cause the psychic events that we are looking for. I suspect that we're growling up the wrong tree here."

"That's what Security said, when they investigated after last night," Zan muttered, and all three of the others shot him looks. "Well, they did."

"You could have mentioned that little tidbit," Michael told him. "Your highness."

"Would it have dissuaded any of you from wanting to come and check for yourselves?" he put in. Liz sighed.

"Is there anything else that you think we can do productively out here, Doctor?" she asked.

"No, probably we've spent enough time and energy. Sorry all for dragging you out here - but it did make sense to double-check." They all headed back to the fin-car and climbed in.

Zan spent a moment looking through the long, narrow pockets of his royal outfit. "Okay, who took the key-stick from me?"

Liz, Michael, and the Doctor each disclaimed any knowledge of it. "Well, it's not here in the slot, and it's not in my pockets."

"Let's spread out and look for it, then," Liz said. "It may have gone astray, but it can't have gone far."

It hadn't, but they looked for nearly ten minutes before the Doctor tried reaching down into a small animal burrow that they hadn't noticed amidst the grasp. "Oooh, that's strange," he muttered.

"If it's moving, pull your hand out very, very carefully," Zan advised. "The venom of the plains-munk is quite dangerous - at least, to all species that I've heard of, except possibly the Klenthorr.

"No, that's not it," the Doctor said, but he pulled his hand out fairly slowly anyway, and showed them the key-stick. "Zan, did you notice anything unusual when you retrieved this from Rath?"

"Well, no, not really, except that he didn't notice that I'd got it," Zan said sullenly, walking over to collect it.

"Just a second," the Doctor said, pulling the key away from Zan's expectent hand. "Liz, Michael, would either of you oblige me by touching this and trying to get a psychic flash or impression?"

"Umm, okay," Liz said, and took the key when the Doctor handed it to her, as Zan looked on, a sullen and discontent look on his royal face. "Umm, maybe something," she said, handing it off to Michael. "Couldn't really say what I was sensing, and I might have imagined it because you put that thought in my head. Michael?"

"Nothing, really," Michael had to admit, and tossed the key back to Zan. Zan screwed up his face to concentrate on the key, and shook his head also. "What did you get, Doctor?"

"It was quite faint, I admit," the Doctor said, "but a sense of something hostile, a psychic impulse that... well, I'm not sure what the purpose might have been, but almost as if this key was a trap that was deliberately set for someone."

"Are you saying that Rath is responsible for all this?" Zan asked irritably. "Or that someone is trying to frame him?"

"I don't know," the Doctor said softly, "except that we need to find out more about the sequence of events that transpired out here last night, and what part the key-stick played."

"Well, we can ask Rose - and Vilandra and Rath," Liz said. "If they've had any luck finding Kyle, we can see if he remembers anything too."

"Rose didn't remember much," the Doctor put in, "after we'd arrived at Brok Bay."

"And so Kyle may have had his memories affected too," Michael said, seeing it. "Well, we'll figure something out. Come on now."

"Agreed," Zan said, and he got the fin-car floating before Liz and the Doctor had taken their seats.

As the fin-car approached the palace, they could see that an air-van was also drawing near. "It's the search party, they've come back," Zan said, and he flashed the warning lights on the fin car three times quickly, then twice more slowly. The van responded with a much more complicated pattern of blinking lights. "They've found your friend Kyle!"

"Couldn't you just have picked up the car phone and talked to them?" Michael asked, shaking his head.

#

"We found him!" Rose called out as soon as the doors of the air-van opened on one of the exterior courtyards of the palace, with a lot of the guests and staff crowding round. "For a second I was worried that he would stay stuck in whatever delerious state he'd been sent into - no, not derlious, what's the word I mean. It's a d word... deluded? Maybe, that's closer..."

"Max, Larek, Rath," Jim Valenti called out, deliberately raising his voice just enough to be clearly heard over Rose's distracted babble. "Come here and help me carry him out."

"No, I can handle it by myself," Rath said. "Just give me room, guys." Stepping close enough to see into the interior of the van, he concentrated - and Kyle's body floated gently out of the vehicle, his back perfectly straight as if he were strapped to an invisible hover-board of some description. Rath backed away slightly and let Kyle pass him by. "Where am I taking him?"

"Umm, use the bed in one of those rooms off the green hall," Ava suggested, hopping down out of the van. "They're big enough for the healers to get some work done, but small enough to be comfortable, and close by. And set him down gently, Rath."

"Hey, I'm all about gently," Rath boasted. Rose was looking after Kyle with an overwhelmed expression on her face, so Maria hovered over to her.

"You thought that he would stay - a little bit out of touch with reality," Maria prompted, "and then what happened?"

"Umm - Ava said that his Da' should try to talk to him alone," Rose said, her accent becoming more pronounced as she shook herself, "and Kyle was getting really worked up, agitated, like, yanno? And then, all of a sudden, he just fainted and collapsed there in the clearing, way out there in the woods."

"A bit like you did," Maria said gently. "Well, we'll figure out what's going on, and how to stop it. The Doctor's on the case, and everybody's pitching in. No matter what's going on, or who's causing this, they can't stand against the lot of us forever, can they?"

"No, I suppose not," Rose agreed, sniffing slightly. "Where is he, anyway? The Doctor?"

"I think that he was going off to visit the cube stones," Maria said. "With Zan, and Liz - and I think Michael might have gone with them - if not he's taken off somewhere else so that Rath doesn't find him."

"Oh." Rose seemed to deflate again at the idea that the Doctor wasn't there to meet her. Maria felt an impulse to console the English girl, and another worthy thought suddenly popped into her head.

"Come on, let's see what we can find for a late lunch. It's got to be getting on into the afternoon, Antarian time, and between the siege and all the furor over Isabel and Kyle, nobody's had a bite to eat since breakfast."

"Yeah, alright," Rose said, smiling slightly. "I could do with a bite, I admit." She looked around, and nodded slightly at Max, who seemed uncertain whether he should join the two of them or follow the Antarians and the Valentis who were crowding in through a small door into one wing of the palace.

Just as Rose was opening her mouth to ask something, Maria made a dramatic 'turn around' gesture towards Max, and shrugging, he did just that and followed Larek inside. That set Rose off giggling, and Maria laughed heartily too, feeling something inside her relax as she did so. "Okay, umm, so what do we do to get food in a place like this?" Rose pointed out sensibly. "Just find our way to the kitchens and ask for something?"

"Hmm." Maria considered this. "Maybe we should go to the dining room first - perhaps they set out something on the sideboard, or they've kept whatever was on the menu on the warming plates just waiting for the Royal Family to show up. They can't have been expecting the siege to pop up so suddenly - and even so, the help must have known that people would be getting hungry soon."

"Alright, that works," Rose said. The two girls found an entrance into the palace interior from the other side of the courtyard, and somewhat to both their surprise, they quickly realized where they were and found their way to the large dining room without much trouble. The hall was deserted and had no signs of lunch being ready when they arrived, but only a few seconds after the two girls had stopped looking around, a uniformed Antarian man, looking very much like a butler or headwaiter, popped through a discreet door at the back of the room.

"Good afternoon, my ladies. What is your pleasure?" For a second, neither Maria nor Rose could come up with an answer to that question, so the butler tried again. "Is there anything you would like me to help you with?"

Maria laughed. "We're looking for lunch."

He smiled a broad, toothy smile. "By all means, Lady Maria. Will there be anybody else joining the two of you?"

"Um - we don't exactly know - probably sooner or later, but not just at the moment," Rose tried. "Just..."

"There you are," a feminine voice called out from the door that they'd entered by. Everybody turned to see the Princess Vilandra standing there and smiling serenely.

"Or maybe there'll be at least one more, just at the moment," Rose added with a slight sigh. "Hello, your highness. Care to join a couple of Earth girls for lunch?"

"I'd be delighted," Vilandra declared enthusiastically. "Have either of you a preference?"

"Umm - nothing too spicy, just at the moment," Maria said, hoping that the concept would translate well enough. "Aside from that, I hardly know what to suggest."

"Hmm." Vilandra considered. "Darsin, do you think that the cooks could prepare that surprise that we were talking of last night?"

"Yes, but it will take a little while," the butler replied immediately. "Nobody was sure when to..."

"Come on, we can just have whatever's ready to..." Rose started, but Vilandra cut her off.

"Get it started, and bring us Rynec and Darva to hold off the hunger until..." All of a sudden, what Rose had been saying seemed to penetrate through the Princess' enthusiasm. "There's something else prepared for lunch?" she asked Darsin.

"Yes, your highness," he said. "Just a cold spread, with Andoffer soup to start it off." He rhymed off a few other dish names that Maria didn't recognize.

Now Vilandra turned to Rose and Maria. "You sure that you don't mind?" she asked.

"Yes," Maria said, smiling slightly, because she had a vague inkling of what the big surprise might be. "This setup sounds great for lunch, especially with other people drifting in whenever they can, and we can have your special dish for a late supper or something of that sort."

"Good enough," Vilandra said, nodding with satisfaction. Soon enough the three of them were seated at the long table, all side by side, facing the door where they expected that new people might be drifting in for food. "So - aside from the craziness around these weird psychic events - would it be too strange to ask if you're enjoying the rest of your trip here?"

Rose laughed. "I'm used to weirdness and crazy wherever I go visiting with the Doctor, and yes, Brok Bay has been lovely, and your family are very gracious hosts."

"So where else have you travelled?" Vilandra asked.

"Umm, let's see," Rose said, taking a moment to think of one of her trips that would be of interest to an Antarian princess. By the time the buffet was being laid out, she had told several of her trips to the far future, not mentioning the time travel element, or that many of them featured 'Earthlings' who had spread out across many star systems or galaxies by that time.

As Rose was winding up her retelling of the devil in the asteroid, Maria looked up from her empty bowl of soup and realized that the further hordes had descended. Michael, Liz, Zan, and the Doctor were all talking together over their appetizers at one end of the table. Another contingent was just entering through the doors, including the King and Queen, Larek, and Jim Valenti. Rose broke off in mid-sentence and stood up. "Is Kyle..."

"We're pretty sure that he'll be okay," the King said somberly. "Can't quite say yet that he's none the worse for his little adventure - the balance of energies within his body have been drained by the powers that he used while he was - affected. We've used healing crystals to give him an energy transfusion, and Max volunteered to watch over him for a while. Take heart, Rose Tyler."

"Th- thank you, your majesty, sire," Rose muttered, and looked over at the Doctor, who smiled and waved her over.

"Has - has anyone else checked in on Isabel lately?" Maria asked, suddenly remembering her good friends upstairs." There was some looking around, but nobody volunteered anything out loud. "I - I should go, then - I promised Alex that we'd let him know when there was news about Kyle - and it's only decent to bring him up a tray of food or something..."

"I'll come with you, take care of the heavy lifting," Michael said, jumping up from a place that still had quite a lot of uneaten food. Maria considered for a moment telling him that he should stay behind, but two considerations pushed her the other way - how much she really did want her Spaceboy's support just now, and the notion that Michael might be looking for an excuse to make himself scarce before Rath showed up wanting lunch. So she nodded, and Michael levitated up a fair fraction of the buffet, including two big bowlsful of the hot soup, and Maria helped him keep an eye on all of it on the way up the stairs, making sure that nothing bumped too hard against the walls on the way up the spiral ramp.

When Michael knocked on the door, there was no answer, but Maria had only to open it a crack and poke her head inside to see Alex blinking his eyes open from his seat next to Isabel's bedside. "Yeah, hello, who is it?"

"Guerin and Deluca delivery and news service," Maria joked, opening the door wide and slipping inside. "How's our dreamwalker doing?"

"Funny you should say that," Alex said, yawning and stretching. "Somehow I think that she was able to let me into her own dream, when I made touch contact." He shook his head. "So what are you delivering, aside from news... oh." The answer became evident as Michael followed Maria in, the floating food trailing him.

"Figured that at least one of you could do with some lunch," Michael put in. "And I thought you might not mind having us over for lunch in a more intimate setting than the downstairs hall."

"Meaning, you're dodging Rath again," Alex filled in with an understanding nod. "Well, sure, set the food down - anywhere that looks clean enough to eat off, I guess. Didn't you think of grabbing a few more dishes?"

"Not until I was halfway up the ramp," Michael admitted. "Sorry." They managed to get the pastries and the darva sandwhich fixings all arranged on the desk and dressertop, which Michael used his powers to clean off first. "So, this reverse dreamwalking trip of Izzie's - is that a new one on you?"

"Umm... as far as I can tell, yeah," he said, shrugging. "There's - well, there's been a few times when we've been together to sleep..." Maria cleared her throat meaningfully, then assumed an angelic countenance when Alex turned to stare at her. "Anyway - as often as not, we'd share a dream, but I always assumed that she woke up in the middle of the night, and deliberately dreamwalked me for the fun of it. This is the first time that I've been spending so much time around her sleeping, and touching her so much of the time... at least, the first time in a long while."

"Okay, fair enough," Michael said, and passed Alex a bowlful of soup and one of the odd Antarian conical spoons. "But she's having good dreams, now? Not nightmarish?"

"Certainly on the good side of neutral," Alex admitted.

"Kyle has been found," Maria abruptly announced. "Just wanted to make sure that I told you that, since it was another part of the reason we came to check in." She shrugged, and reached out to take a few slices of darva and some of the cold meats and build herself a sandwich.

"How's he doing?" Alex asked.

"Not so great," Michael admitted. "From what His Majesty said, he was - like I got after being in the sweatlodge, or nearly. Drained and feverish, because whatever was haunting him made him keep using powers and drained his resources of the Balance. They used healing stones on him, though."

"Dammit," Alex muttered. "We have to get to the root of the psychic events, somehow. Did any of you find out anything useful?"

"Bupkus, inside the castle," Maria reported.

"One possible tidbit, from an unexpected source," Michael chimed in. "Doctor thinks that the key-stick for Rath's fin-car might be important, he said that he felt a hostile psychic trace inside it or something. Hopefully that'll turn into an actual lead."

"Yeah," Maria agreed, and opened her mouth wide to take a bite out of her triangular sandwich.

"I hope it isn't changing the time-streams that we're turning the Antarians back onto sandwiches," Michael said with a little smile. Maria tried to say 'what', but it would have been impossible without spewing sandwich filling over Isabel's sleeping body.

"How, now?" Alex asked him instead.

Michael turned to look at Maria as if expecting her to contribute something or nod in agreement, but she just shrugged. "Maybe Vilandra didn't say anything - and I suppose I might be getting ahead of myself, since I just had Prince Zan's reaction to go by. Sandwiches aren't - I don't think that the idea is completely foreign to the Antarians, but they're rare and out of style, or something like that. I honestly think that Zan had never thought too seriously about them. He was getting quite interested in the art of building a Dagwood tower, when I got up to come with you, honey."

"Interesting," Maria managed after swallowing twice. "Wasn't there a star trek episode or something about somebody getting stranded on a primitive planet, and they'd never invented the sandwich, so they made him the High sandwich maker of the village, and acted like he'd been sent there by their Gods as a messiah to teach them the art of making sandwiches?"

Alex looked up crossly at her, as if he was personally offended. "That was _not_ Star Trek. That was the writings of the dearly departed master of comedy, Douglas Adams, in the hitch-hiker's guide to the galaxy series. Admittedly, 'Mostly Harmless' is not really Adams at the peak of his genius, but..."

"Sheesh, I'm sorry that I even mentioned it," Maria laughed.

"I... I'm not," Isabel whispered, and everybody turned to stare at the girl lying on the bed in between them. Isabel had not moved so much as a finger, or opened her eyes, but there could be no doubt that she had spoken. "I - I admit that I'm a little curious why you're talking about sandwiches, but somehow... I'm glad of it, and I don't know why."

"How do you feel, honey?" Alex asked her.

"Thirsty, really thirsty."

"Right, umm," Alex muttered. A look around the room confirmed that Michael and Maria had brought no cold beverages along with them, and suddenly Maria felt terribly thirsty herself. The sandwich filling, even the bread-like Darva were all on the salty side after all, but somehow she hadn't consciously noticed the effect until Isabel mentioned her own thirst. "Any chance you feel like you can manage hot soup?"

"Umm, I'm not sure," Isabel answered, sounding puzzled at that offering. "Just a moment." And now, she moved more than just her mouth, stretching and pushing herself back so that she could sit up, propped up against her cushions, trying to open her eyes.

At this moment, Michael rose from the little padded stool that he'd been sitting on, closing a curtain across the glass patio door with his alien powers as he stepped across to the shared bathroom between this room and the one he shared with Maria. In a moment, he was back, with a wet streak splashed across his shirt, and a tiny little porcelain cup cradled in his hands. "Those fountains are a menace," he muttered. "Sinks are a lot less trouble. And who'd have thought today would be the day when I'd beat the both of you to a little common sense?"

"I let you have this one, honey," Maria told him sweetly. "Just to prove that you're capable of showing it when you need to." Michael rolled his eyes, and offered the cup of water to Isabel. She nearly dropped it the first time, but only a little dribble spilled on the blankets, and she seemed quite satisfied to drain the rest of it down her throat. "Do you need more, honey? That's not a very big cup."

"Umm - no, actually, I think I'm ready to try the soup now," Isabel admitted. "And find out what happened next after Kyle zapped me. Did anybody get my birthstone back?"

"He - he took your birthstone, sweetheart?" Alex asked, sounding disappointed. "I don't know if anybody was looking for it."

"Give me that, please?" Maria asked Michael after he'd helped carry over the second bowl of soup for Isabel. It took a moment for him to realize that she was talking about the porcelain cup, but eventually it was handed over. and Maria took one cupful in the bathroom, (being very careful not to get a wet t-shirt herself from the bathroom fountains,) and brought another back into the bedroom to have with the rest of her darva sandwich.

"So, we don't really know much about what happened after Kyle zapped you," Michael was admitting. "He zapped King Sanren a little bit too, and when His Majesty had recovered, you were out like a light, as it were, and no sign of young mister Valenti. Also, I get the impression that he didn't really say much when they found him before collapsing himself. None of us were there."

"No, but Rose was," Maria said, "and - well, yeah, I got that impression. Whatever. Maybe we should hear your side of the story, Isabel - if you can remember it, that is."

"I think I remember most of it, though some parts seem jumbled," Isabel admitted. And while finishing her soup, she told them about her diversionary mission to the balcony outside their rooms during the siege game, how Kyle had been waiting in that area like some sort of a rear guard, and how he'd suddenly changed and started acting as if the premise of the siege was real - and also as if he was one of the rebels, and that Isabel was the princess, trying to hide the jewel of Kindarra that the rebels needed to win the action.

"Very weird," Alex muttered when she was finished with her retelling. "That reversion - it seems as if something in Kyle's subconscious seized on the siege, and what he knew about the duality of yourself and Vilandra, that on some deep psychic level you're supposedly the same soul, and used that as a basis for his actions."

"Yeah," Maria said. "Does what we know about Rose's episode share any elements with that?"

There was a long pause. "We don't know enough, especially about what she might have been orienting on," Michael said. "It seems to be drawing from a few notions of a classic Victorian haunting, or something like that, as far as I know - the dark and stormy night, the travellers stranded on their way far from shelter, the enigmatic chanting. I can't make much more of it than that."

"Right." Isabel stretched. "I feel like I've been stuck in bed for long enough, now - and I do want to go down and take a peek at Kyle, if anybody can lead me there. Maybe the birthstone is still in one of his pockets or something."

"This is one of those moments where we'd better not get in your way, isn't it?" Michael said, and Isabel grinned and nodded. "Not even to suggest that maybe you should eat more?"

"Maybe I haven't worked up as much of an appetite as you guys have, lying here," she complained. "The soup hit the spot, but I don't really need anything more." She struggled carefully out of the bed, needing to choose her movements to avoid jostling any of the friends gathered around her, or their own meals. "Umm - except maybe to hit the facilities after taking in all that liquid."

"By all means," Michael said. "Maybe I'll be done chowing down by then, and can lead you down to the room where Kyle was set up. I don't think that Alex has been there - or you, honey?"

"No, we went in through another door, Rose and I," Maria explained. "What about you guys?"

"Zan wanted to check on him - we landed only about a minute or so after the rescue van," Michael told her. Isabel inched her way past Maria and headed for the bathroom, then turned back.

"Who won the siege?" she asked, smiling.

Maria blinked. "Nobody. Siege was officially called off as soon as we realized that there had been another psychic event," she said. "Which is a bit of a shame, because the action was hotting up nicely at that point."

"How did you figure it out?" Isabel asked.

"Well, I think first security said that the King was down - they'd probably been keeping an eye on him from a distance when he opened the door to yell at you," Michael explained. "I think that they're pissed off, because the whole thing reflects badly on them. If whatever got into Kyle had been a bit more hostile, it could have seriously fried the King, and they weren't close enough to shield him. Anyway, soon after that, Alinda and Liz both clued in to the fact that whatever happened to Rose was back, and closer. It really seems like they're on this thing's wavelength, even though they can't explain exactly what it is."

"Ahh, okay. Tell me more after I'm done," Isabel said, stepping across the threshold and closing the bathroom door behind her.

#

The mood in Brok Bay castle was quite restrained and even a little foreboding through the late afternoon, as if everybody was waiting for the next calamity or psychic incident to strike. The next major event was not immediately calamitous, however - Ava's aunt Shelda and a few younger cousins arrived late for their scheduled visit, their groundcar having run into some mechanical difficulties on the drive over dry, desert-like inland country.

Ava took a good deal of pleasure introducing her relatives to the Time Lord and his earthling friends. Everybody attended dinner in the great hall, with the 'surprise' of dishes that had been prepared to match Earthly recipes finally brought out... and Max, Isabel, and Michael crowding together near the foot of the long table, to avoid their Royal counterparts up closer to the King's right and left side.

Max and Isabel did make their excuses and leave early, reluctantly, when Alinda started to organize the Chorus of Songs. Michael would have gone with them, too, if Maria hadn't grabbed him before he could stand up. "I dont care if you sit in the furthest corner and avoid Rath all night, but I want you to stick around for this, okay?" she whispered.

Michael considered. "Will you sit in the corner with me?" he asked, smiling slightly.

"Most of the time," Maria answered, and Michael mouth scrunched up crookedly in that way that it did sometimes when he was puzzled over a question. "Keep thinking about it, honey," she suggested.

By this time, the collection of peculiar alien spheres for the Chorus has been set up, and Alinda asked for volunteers. Ava, her Aunt, and the oldest of her cousins went up together at first, singing in what seemed like a sort of hymnal/gospel style, but as far as Maria could follow the words, they were retelling a glorious and bloody battle thousands of the years in the past, in an epic ballad style. (She didn't think that much of the poetical style, but figured that it might sound better in Antarian - the TARDIS translation field could handle the literal meanings of the words fine, but she wouldn't be surprised if it had some trouble with rhyme and meter, connotation and allusion.)

Larek, Zan, and Rath took the stage next, doing their number in a sort of 'barbershop trio' style, singing about a young man who was out wandering in the foothills and spotted a beautiful girl that he was instantly and hopelessly smitten with, but then discovered that she was from a sort of legendary offshoot species with wings. There were eight or nine verses of the poor guy following her flock from place to place, and each time failing to convince her to give up life in the air and join him on the ground. Despite the slightly stalker-ish overtones, the tune was irresistible, and well over half the company was joining in the chorus by the end. Maria was one of the first.

So, after the boy's trio filed off, Maria got up, and waved her hand to Alinda to indicate that she was already on her way. She gestured to Alex to join her, but he waved that away with a Cheshire-cat grin, and Liz decided to try backing Maria up.

"What do you have in mind?" Liz whispered. "I don't know your whole repertoire."

"You know this one," Maria muttered back. "I played it for you guys, just a few weeks ago."

"Oh, the one that you wanted to know what we thought of the lyrics before you went to that open mike?" Liz asked, and Maria nodded. "Okay, I'll do what I can."

"So, how do I start this rig going?" Maria asked out loud, gesturing to the alien sound equipment. "Just think at it?"

"Try contact at first," Alinda replied. "Just touch the crystal right in front of you - yes, there." Maria reached out and laid her palm and fingers on it, thinking as clearly as she could of the instrumentals that she needed. Soon enough, a pair of drumsticks sounded tapping against each other, exactly as Markos had done when she'd practiced this song with the Whits, and and then the drums started a more regular rhythm and a soulful bass line began. She took a deep breath, found her place, and sang out as the lead guitar joined in:

"I've got this dream I've been dreaming,

The perfect picture of love.

Sparks and fireworks flying,

Almost too hot to touch."

She made eye contact with Michael in the corner,and he smiled back, having figured out by now why she wanted him there, and why she hadn't promised to stay in the corner with him all night.

"Everything I wanted and then some

Suddenly walked in the room

I said I needed different, but maybe

I spoke too soon..."

Liz joined in with a counterpoint harmony as the chorus started, stumbling slightly on her key but then finding it again.

"It's every kind of crazy I could ever imagine.

A battle raging between my head and my heart

But if you've gotta have it all,

That madness and passion,

Then you'll learn, ooh, you'll learn:

If you want fire...

It better be worth the burn."

A slight cheer went up from everybody after Maria and Liz delivered the last line of the chorus at perfect pitch, and Maria danced back and forth slightly as an 'instrumental' measure played from the spheres before the next verse. She noticed that Alex was miming playing on a keyboard, and concentrated, trying to bring a synthesizer into the mix softly without letting it overpower the guitars.

"We're either laughing or crying,

Flying high or running away.

But in between the thunder and lightning,

There's always another day.

Another day..."

This time, many of the Antarians joined in with singing the chorus. Maria wondered if Sanren and Alinda, for example, still felt that kind of crazy passionate love for each other - and what the Royal Four made of it.

"It's every kind of crazy I could ever imagine.

A battle raging between my head and my heart

But if you gotta have it all,

That madness and passion,

Then you'll learn, oh, you'll learn:

If you want fire..."

This time, an instrumental was supposed to start without the final words of the first chorus, 'better be worth the burn' - they got skipped this time around. Maria put both hands back on the sphere in front of her and poured her soul into the counterpoint of the different guitar lines, and the beat and the synthesizer notes backing them up. She noticed that Vilandra actually sang the missing line because she'd been expecting it, and then looked around awkwardly when she realized that it had been left out on purpose. Maria smiled back encouragingly at her.

Once the lead guitar had risen to an intensely high riff, Maria took a deep breath and belted her own way into the bridge:

"Sometimes it feels all or nothing,

Sometimes it's nothing at all.

But in between those moment's it's magic,

That **softens the fall**..."

She turned to smile at Liz, who had joined in unison with her on that last phrase.

"It's every kind of crazy I could ever imagine.

A battle raging between my head and my heart

But if you've gotta have it all,

That madness and passion,

Then you'll learn, ooh, you'll learn:

If you want fire...

It better be worth the burn.

If you want fire,

It better be worth the burn..."

And then, there was nothing left but the guitar, and Maria couldn't resist miming the instrument in the air. As she played on, she realized that the music of the spheres was actually responding to her air guitar, so she gave Alex and Michael a special solo before letting it fade away.

The entire hall jumped up and cheered their applause for her.


	18. Chapter 18

"So, how are you feeling?" Max asked Isabel as he opened the door of his room and let her come in first.

"Fine, seriously," Isabel said. "I had a nice, relaxing, sleep in the middle of the day, I've eaten well, including a good Antarian take on cheeseburgers and french fries, and I feel like I have plenty of surplus energy to blow off." She sat down on the desk chair, and turned around to see Max smiling tolerantly at her little outburst. "So - what about you?"

"I'm doing well - and wondering if the time is coming when I should meet Prince Zan after all," Max said. Isabel mimed a 'horrors' gesture, opening her mouth in a big wide circle. "Yeah, well - even the Doctor made a point of mentioning to me that he thought we were overdoing the idea of avoiding our opposite numbers, that he didn't think there was any particular danger now."

"Yeah, Rose made sure to pass that message along to me," Isabel said, and sighed. "I don't know, somehow I feel like I'm not quite ready to face up to Vilandra, even if the space-time continuum is okay with it. Maria and Liz seem to like her fine, and say that she's really not a bit like Lonnie." Isabel sighed. "Maybe after we've sorted out all of this psychic manifestation stuff - right now, it just seems like any of us meeting our opposites would be one thing too many, until then."

"Yeah, that's a good point," Max said, sighing with relief. "I was thinking the same thing, but I'm not sure I could have said it so well." He sighed. "Well, so that's the plan. What else?" Isabel shrugged, and Max flopped down onto the bed on his back.

"Guess it's a good think that Brok Bay has rooms for non-Antarian visitors like this," Isabel remarked idly. Max propped himself up on one shoulder to look a question in her direction. "Oh, didn't we tell you about the mattresses on Kaalto? Ridiculous things, full of support rods and gelatin pools in all the wrong places. Great for them, I guess, but just murder on anybody who doesn't have an Antarian spine."

"How did you manage for that many days?" Max asked.

"Well, the Doctor used his sonic screwdriver to customize them, so they were almost as good as my bed at home. Took him a while, that first night. Kyle went all macho and had the guys help him rig up a hammock, so that nobody else needed to go to the trouble of futzing with his single."

"And - what about when you were in holding, with security?" Max asked. "You were in there for at least one night, right?"

Isabel turned half away. "That was tougher. I spent most of the first night on the floor, and then one of the guards noticed and slipped me a sort of padded mat."

Max nodded. "Well, that was nice of him. So, you think that all the Antarians use matresses like that, even though this is decades ago?"

"I guess I assumed so," Isabel said. "It seems like one of the things that they take completely granted unless they're really in the habit of thinking about aliens - as in people of another species, not just Antarians who live on another planet." She snorted. "They forgot about it with Kyle, when they did the healing stones ritual with him and left him to rest."

"Oh, god!" Max groaned. "I was there, and... he did seem restless, but I never thought..."

"That's okay, you didn't know," Isabel told him. "Maria and Rose would probably have clued in, but they didn't tag along with him until they'd gotten him laid down. Don't worry, it's all been taken care of now." She smiled a little bit smugly.

"Thank you very much, mattress Nazi," Max teased her. "So you went down to check in on Kyle before dinner?"

"Yeah, and to check for something else." Isabel sighed. "During the - psychic event, Kyle, or whoever he was at the time - he took my birthstone necklace, the one Alex gave me."

"Oh, really?" Max said, sitting up and immediately assuming a proper demeanour of concern. "And you were checking to see if he still had it?"

"Yes, which he doesn't." Isabel sighed. "Maria and Michael helped me check the balcony and the courtyards nearby, before the sun went down. No luck at all. I'm wondering if I can get a ride out to the same area where they found him, tomorrow morning."

"I'll come with you if you want, of course," Max said.

"Thanks." There was a moment of silence. "Don't take this the wrong way, but - is there something else on your mind, Max?"

"Yeah, actually. I was just wondering - exactly what did we come into the past to find out, anyway? What's here that I really needed to understand before I go and face Tess in our own time?"

"I'm not sure," Isabel admitted. "Maybe it isn't anything you can point to so specifically, just a question of absorbing a bit about Antarian culture and society - and coming to terms with the idea that Zan and Vilandra weren't really legendary figures, just ordinary kids who happened to be born into a royal family, who we can actually make friends with." She smiled. "Or maybe we just needed to learn that there's really nothing we need to learn here."

"Thanks, Princess Yoda," Max chuckled.

"Speak like Yoda, until now, I did not."

#

Kyle woke up in the middle of the night, with an odd sort of sound filling the bedroom. He found that he couldn't really remember going to bed, or what else had led up to that moment - which immediately reminded him of sitting on Rose's bed and finding out that she didn't have a clear memory of the trip out to the foursquare cubes. Had - had something else happened to him like that? Was that possible?

What did he remember? He remembered being roused out of his bed in the morning by Liz, telling him about this siege warfare thing, kind of like an alien bondage capture the flag, and sitting out on the balcony as Princess Vilandra explained the rules. He - he had stayed behind in his room, to see if anybody from the rebels' side came into that area to look for Vilandra, and... and that was that.

And _what_ was the sound? Kyle sat up, got his eyes to focus by rubbing his hands against his eyelids just hard enough and no harder, and saw that his father was lying in the other bed, quite undisturbed by anything. It was a rushing sort of sound, not quite like running water and not exactly like a hard wind blowing, but similar to both of those, perhaps even midway in between them.

So Kyle lurched to his feet and over to the door - and gasped in a shock so profound that he nearly lost his balance. Outside, it looked as if the Northern Lights of earth were surrounding the palace - a soft cloud of illumination that gently flowed from one shade to another, passing through just about every pastel color that Kyle could think of and a few that wouldn't have occured to him, filled the sky until it was cut off by the next building across the courtyard. Enthralled by the wonder of it, Kyle rattled his glass door open, stepped out onto the communal balcony - and spotted another beautiful sight that struggled to rival the colors of the night.

Rose was standing only a few feet away from him, dressed in only a light gray t-shirt long enough to fall to her thighs. To Kyle she looked unbelievably beautiful and feminine in the lights of the 'Aurora Antarianis' surrounding them, and the smile that she favored him with when she spotted him just completed the effect of nearly killing him.

"Is - is this a dream, or is it real life?" he blurted out.

"Can't a dream be real?" Rose teased, stepping close to him and letting her eyes wander playfully over his body. Kyle looked down and realized that he was only wearing a wife-beater undershirt and short boxers himself, and that showed off an athletic physique that he'd worked hard on maintaining for years. "What if a dream is more real than the waking?" Another step, and she was so close, almost close enough that Kyle could reach out and touch her. But only almost.

The obvious solution to that problem would be to take a step closer to her himself, but try as Kyle might, he found that his feet and legs wouldn't obey him. "What's happened to me?" he asked. "To us? And why are the northern lights so close?"

"Because they had to come and see for themselves what happens next," Rose told him, and he couldn't quite tell whether she was being sincere, playfully flirting, or perhaps just dreamishly enigmatic. "You and I, Kyle, have been through something - awful and beautiful all at once, and that ties our lives together."

"For- forever?" Kyle whispered, hardly daring to hope.

"I... I'm not sure about that," Rose said, blushing and looking downward just the same way he could imagine her doing under more ordinary circumstances. "My - my destiny lies with the Doctor, and somehow I have the feeling that he's just a guest star in your lives." She sighed. "But for all of our experience in moving from one time to another, Kyle, we really don't know what our own future holds. We can't shape our own paths, not entirely. Right here, right now, I'm with you, and I'm not going to hold anything back because I'm worried about what the future might or might not be. Maybe if we're fearless enough, time will bring us back to each other, or keep us together. Maybe not. Are you ready to take that leap into the deep end of the pool?"

"Every time," Kyle whispered, and it was as if the words broke his partial paralysis. He didn't just take one step closer to Rose, he unintentionally charged at her and swept her literally off his feet, as all of the straining he'd been doing to get close to her came unbound all at once. She grinned trustingly at him, falling into his strong arms, and their lips met in a kiss that felt hot enough to rival the core of a yellow-white sun, at least.

As that passionate kiss continued, Kyle realized that Rose had ended up with her back against the wall of somebody or another's room, and her hands were running playfully over his chest, while Kyle's own, somewhat surprisingly, were holding Rose tight at her shoulder and waist, as if they were slow-dancing without movement or music. And something else started to happen - a flood of memories, of emotions, of self-identity and thought patterns, beliefs and attitudes and behaviours, all of it spread through him and more and more, until he thought he might be drowning in Rose Tyler, or losing his own identity, but what an incredible way it was to go!

And the lights closed in all around them.

#

Princess Vilandra charged into Maria and Michael's room just as the morning twilight was starting to break through the patio door.

"Sorry," she immediately said. "Sorry, sorry, sorry, this isn't really considerate behaviour of a hostess, but I just had to let you know. We've been challenged, the royal four to defend the honor of the Crown, and it's going to start at sunrise over at the Stones. You have to be there to see us at our best. Say that you'll wake up enough to come - Maria, Michael? Can you hear me?"

Maria was listening, and processing what she heard as well as she could. "Yeah, umm, I can hear you, and - all four of you? Ava, Zan, and Rath?"

"Yeah, of course," Vilandra said. "Hasn't anybody told you about why we're called the Royal four? Well, that doesn't matter so much, I suppose."

"Right, okay." Maria considered, and as Michael stirred, she concentrated for a long moment on relaxation, on gentle waves and other mental imagery that helped her get to sleep. She couldn't really 'send' thoughts deliberately to Michael, but if she concentrated on something when they were in contact, Michael's own Antarian powers and his strong connection to her usually allowed him to pick up what was going through her mind. Apparently it worked for this, as he fell back and started to snore. "I, umm, I can go, but Michael's just dead to the world. Do you want my help seeing if we can persuade any of the rest of the gang to come? I'll - umm, I'll take Alex and Isabel's room."

"Okay, thanks," the Princess said, running out of the room into the hall with an excited bounce in her step. Maria sighed, crawled out of bed, and wrapped a warm dressing gown around herself and the barely-there nighty that she'd slept through the night in. On an impulse, she stepped out onto the balcony, to get a sense for the Antarian twilight and go through to Alex and Isabel's that way, rather than taking the corridor or the bathroom way.

Outside, she nearly cried out in alarm when she realized that she wasn't alone. Two figures could be made out, with one of the oversized bedspreads from the rooms wrapped under and overtop both of them as they slept on the roof tiles, tucked between one of the tables and the wall between the two furthest patio doors. Was - was it Kyle and Rose? Maria whistled loudly to herself and just hurried along. 'Nothing to see here,' she thought to herself - or was it just that it would be better for someone else to officially notice them here? What had made her think of that?

"Hey, guys," she said, sliding open the door furthest away from Kyle and Rose. "Vilandra's all excited and attendance Nazi about some foursquare thing. Isabel, maybe you should fake..." At that point, she saw that Alex and Isabel were each sitting cross-legged on the bed, facing each other, playing some kind of board game that looked like chess, except that there was a half-square offset between the two sides of the board, which she didn't understand how that would work. "Umm, maybe not."

"For heaven's sake, no, I'm not going to fake sleep for the good Princess," Isabel vowed. "Enough is enough."

"So - are you going to come?" Alex asked. "Just stay back, or something?"

"No," Isabel said. "Tell her that we're busy, we're not coming, and we don't want to be disturbed. Got it?"

"Right," Maria said, smiling, though she noticed that Alex seemed a bit disappointed at being Isabel's alibi - had he wanted to see what 'the Foursquare thing' had been about? "Well, when we're gone and your game is over, maybe you should check on Kyle and Rose - I think that they're not going to be ready to go."

"Why not?" Alex asked, but Maria was already backing out of the way. If she wanted to be ready to go herself, she'd need to get dressed quickly.

In less than five minutes, it was clear that the only ones coming along would be Maria herself, Liz, Jim Valenti, and the Doctor. Max had given Vilandra his own regrets in person, saying that after everything that Kyle had been through, he wanted to stay close. As far as Maria knew, Vilandra didn't find out about Kyle and Rose's alternate sleeping arrangements, though everybody else (aside from Michael sleeping, and Isabel/Alex playing their game,) seemed to have seen or heard, and all were quite curious. Maria wondered how late the two of them would manage to sleep - especially once the light of sunrise came.

"So, just what is this foursquare thing about?" Valenti asked, awkwardly working to get both of his arms into a denim jacket. Maria looked for Vilandra, but the Princess had run off towards a ramp. The four of them followed her at a slower walk.

"Well, Max and I found a few references to the Royal Four and their foursquare in notes that Tess left behind," Liz said quietly. "That it couldn't be broken, that even Kivar couldn't have killed them except that they were taken by surprise and didn't have time to prepare." She sighed. "We're still not sure what that means, though."

"Yes," the Doctor said pensively. I came across similarly - enigmatic phrases in the Kaalto college library," the Doctor agreed. "Even asked one of the locals, and they said that they weren't entirely sure of the significance of the foursquare themselves, except that it had something to do with sport or warfare."

"Interesting dichotomy," Maria muttered.

"Not really," Valenti said. "On earth, many sports were originally derived from mock battles."

When they reached the ramp and had walked to the bottom, Ava was waiting for them with a shy smile on her face. "Come on," she said. "You'll all be in the second air-van, if that's alright. Royal protocol says that we should all ride together, and there isn't room for our guests, unfortunately."

"That's quite alright," Maria told her as Ava led the way out to a courtyard where vehicles were waiting - the same one where she'd met the rescue party bringing Kyle back home, the afternoon before. "Thanks for waiting for us."

"That's alright," Ava said. "Frankly, though I shouldn't say this, I'm not that eager for the challenge. I know that we can stand up to anything if we just stay strong and stick together, but I can't help but think - all it takes is for one little thing to go wrong, and one of us could be crippled for life or killed - or more than just one."

"That sounds crazy," Liz said. "Why do you do it, anyway? Why do the King and Queen allow this, when two of their children are risking their lives - and two young friends who I have to believe they've grown very fond of."

"Well, it's complicated," Ava said. "If it were only the risk that mattered, of course they could refuse any exhibition stunts or challenges like this with an element of risk, but - times aren't good for the Royalty as an institution just now. My Lord Sanren needs all the political capital he can get, and when we put ourselves on the line and come through for him - he gets a lot of it each time." She sighed. "And I guess I'm letting myself worry morbidly over almost nothing, really. There's no particular reason to assume that anything will ever go wrong with the foursquare."

That was the last thing that was spoken before Liz, Maria, Jim, and the Doctor were led into the secondary air-van, along with Larek and a few security guards, one of whom was doubling as their chauffeur. "There's no particular reason to assume that it won't, eventually, either," the Doctor said to himself, sadly.

"That what won't?" Larek asked.

"That - that something won't go wrong with these foursquare challenges, eventually," the Doctor explained, a bit awkwardly.

"Yes, I know what you mean," Larek agreed. "Zan's been one of my best friends for years, and sometimes this stuff seems like a slightly crazy risk to take, but - well, I've explained my concerns. It really isn't my choice, and I'm not sure what I'd do if it was, either. They **are** very good at it, after all."

"Just what is the whole thing about?" Jim asked irritably. "Nobody's explained it to any of us."

"No?" Larek smiled a secretive smile. "Then I'm sorry, but I can't either - just because I want to see the look on your faces when it happens."

"When what happens?" Maria asked.

But Larek wouldn't say anything more, and soon the air van had landed at the foursquare stones. Zan, Vilandra, Rath, and Ava had already assumed a formation that was somewhat familiar to Maria and Liz - standing nearly at the points of a square, or a rhombus perhaps, each facing out in a different direction. They were close enough that each could touch at least two of the others if they reached out in the right places at the same time, and Rath and Ava were also close enough to one of the stones that they could touch the side of it, but they didn't yet.

Larek led them over close to where Sanren and Alinda were watching, and trying to look confident about the whole business. There seemed to be Antarians who were recording the proceedings with small handheld cameras of some sort - journalists perhaps, and a few attendants were wheeling something out of a different air-van that looked somewhat like one of the old cannons that all the Roswellian kids had seen on a trip to one of the forts that had been used back in the days of the Mexican wars.

"What is it?" Valenti asked, but nobody answered him. The gun was aimed, clearly just so that whatever projectile or whatever it shot, it would be on target to hit Zan - or Ava if Zan dodged aside at the last moment. The gun attendants waved to signal something, and the four young Antarians, (the royal four,) all linked hands for a moment, then broke again, and Zan waved back. There was some kind of a shimmer or distortion that made them hard to see.

And then the gun was activated, firing a beam of white light so intense that nobody could look straight at it - or at the kids that the beam was pointed at, though Maria had a faint impression of something shining as brightly as another sun over there next to the stone monument. "What the hell?" the Doctor suddenly exploded in fury. "What is the meaning of this? What is wrong with you people?"

"Don't worry, Doctor, they're safe," Larek explained confidently. "They've already proved out the challenge by surviving the initial onslaught for three seconds. Now it's just a bonus, how long they can keep the foursquare shield up for. Zan will signal if they're running low on juice before the Zirconium laser does."

"How is he expected to signal anything, through that light?" Liz exclaimed, sounding nervous herself.

"He'll use his powers to make a sound," Sanren replied gruffly.

"This is a morbid and short-sighted game, Your Majesty," the Doctor lectured him. "What use is political capital, if something happens to your son and your daughter?"

Sanren just chuckled, and pointed over at the laser gun. Everybody looked over at it, and at first the only difference that Maria could tell was that the beam of light was slightly less oppressively bright - and then there was a huge shower of sparks, and the beam winked out entirely, leaving part of the gun smouldering and glowing with a faintly orange light. For a second, Maria could see that there was a mirrored egg-shape surrounding the Royal four, and blocking her view of the bottom part of the monument stone that she knew was behind them. The grass in front of the egg-shell was burnt away or smoking, but just at that instant the egg-shield vanished too, and she could see that the Prince, Princess, Rath and Ava were alright, even grinning in triumph, and the grass at their feat seemed to be trodden down but otherwise unhurt.

"I still don't like it," Jim muttered under his breath. "Like a lottery in reverse - most of the time, you get a decent payout and everything's fine. But what happens if the unlucky number comes up?"

Nobody really had an answer to that, as one of the journalists came out to do some kind of a puff-piece interview with Prince Zan and the Royal Four.

#

Michael woke, yawned, and wondered if he'd dreamed the bit about Vilandra barging into their room and Maria wanting him to go back to sleep. It didn't immediately make sense to him, but when he reached out, Maria wasn't there, so maybe that fit into the memory somehow. He sat up and got out of the bed, blinking slightly at the sunlight that came through the edges of the curtains that had been pulled out across the balcony door, found a t-shirt with a band logo on it and some black jeans, and went out onto the balcony, pushing through the curtains.

"Ahh, here he comes," Isabel said as Michael blinked. "Michael, you just missed catching Rose and Kyle in flagrante for yourself."

"Hey, come on, quit it," Kyle grumped, sitting down at one of the hex tables, next to Rose - in one of those singlet undershirts and boxer shorts. "I told you, we didn't flagrante anything, except for one good kiss, and..."

"I feel so confused," Rose admitted, shaking her head. "Are we sure that the TARDIS is where we left it? I could have sworn that I saw it flying by, just before Kyle... umm. Kissed me, yeah, let's stick with that for the time being."

"Well, as much as I'm riveted by this knowledge of what Kyle and Rose did or didn't do last night," Michael put in, "can I get a cup of something at least as coffee, and what the heck is going on this morning? Where are Maria, umm, and Liz, since she's not within reach of you Max, and..." He broke off to count names. Alex was there, within reach of Isabel actually, so that left...

"Kyle's dad, and the Doctor," Isabel filled in, picking up a carafe of something and pouring it into a tall, narrow juice glass, then handing it to him. "It sounds like the Royal Four are demonstrating the Four square, whatever that means. Max didn't ask, and Maria didn't say anything much to us."

"Oh, that thing where they join up with the power of heart or whatever, and nobody can hurt them?" Kyle asked. "Was that the deal?"

Everybody looked at him. "I haven't heard about that deal, but maybe," Max admitted. "It does sound a bit like something that Liz and I read about a long time ago. Who told you about this?"

"Umm - Rath, and Vilandra, when we went to see the stone monument," Kyle said. "You were there, honey, don't you remember... oh, right." He sighed and shook his head tenderly in Rose's direction. "That was just before you had your psychic event, so you don't remember anything about it. They explained a lot about - how the four of them were really good at doing a foursquare, like world champion great, and how it meant when they joined their Antarian powers together, they could come up with defenses that practically nobody else could break through."

"Hmm, interesting," Isabel said, looking meaningfully over at Max. "Part of the reason that the Royal Four became a legend in their own time, maybe?"

"And, speaking of psychic events, did I have one of my own yesterday?" Kyle asked. "Because - well, I woke up in the middle of the night last night, and I couldn't remember much after the siege game started."

"Yes, you had a damn fool psychic event, Valenti!" Isabel flared at him. "You were standing right over there, I was - well, I guess I was trying to bluff you into calling for help, because I was the rebel diversion, and you weren't taking the bait. Then - well, all of a sudden it was like you became a different person. You thought that you were the rebel and I was the princess who was hiding the Jewel of Kindarra, and you thought it was all for real!"

"Really?" Kyle asked, sounding only generally interested. "So what did I do to get it?"

"You zapped me with some fuckin' paralysis energy bolt!" Isabel flared at him. "You threw me around and told me to open my jewelry box, and of course I didn't even have one here. I even opened up the pocket in my suitcase where I kept the few pieces of jewelry that I brought in case there was a formal ball or something, and..." She took a ragged breath, and everybody realized that Isabel was furiously trying to control herself and not start sobbing out loud. "_Youtook the birthstone necklace that Alex gave me for my birthday_!" she screamed. "_It's still missing_!"

"Oh, my god," Kyle said, going somewhat pale, realizing that this whole thing wasn't at all funny and not something that he should be 'only vaguely' interested in - not if he wanted to avoid Isabel Evans kicking his ass five ways to Saturday. "You - I'm really, sorry, but... you realize that I wasn't myself, right? You can't really hold me responsible for..."

Suddenly Isabel collapsed, more or less managing to get herself sitting on one of the balcony chairs on the first try, and Alex helpfully shoved her over so that she was in no danger of falling off. "Ob curth, I unnerthann dath, Kyy..." She grabbed a fancy cloth napkin from the table, blew her nose with it and wiped her eyes with the spots that weren't snotty, and started again. "I do understand that, Kyle - but I'm frustrated and disappointed at the thought that we might not be able to find it, that this piece of Alex and my history might end up stranded in Antar's history..."

"We'll go out looking for it together," Alex said, sitting down next to Isabel, rubbing her shoulders with one hand, and eating some breakfast finger foods with the other. "Can we leave as soon as breakfast is done? Rose - do you remember where they found Kyle?"

"Umm - I just might be able to direct you, not sure - but how do we get there?" Rose asked practically. "It's definitely too far to walk. Just find an air-van or something that nobody else is using? And whom among us would do the piloting?"

"Good point," Max agreed quietly. "Also, I think that the Antarian equivalent of ignition keys aren't usually left in the vehicles, even in a quiet place like Brok Bay. And there's enough security around, who'd probably want to know where we're taking the van." He sighed. "I think that we'll need to recruit one of the Royal four, or somebody else who knows the area. How about Ava? She was along with you when you found him, right?"

"Yes, and she might well help," Rose said excitedly. "But - but there's something else, about the psychic events! Umm..." She looked around. "Do any of you know anything about hypnosis? Would Maria or Liz?"

"Hypnosis?" Michael repeated dubiously. "I know that Maria's mother thinks herself quite the expert hypnotist. I don't think that Maria has practiced it much herself - why?"

"Something that Ava and Mister Valenti were talking about, in the air-van, before we found Kyle," Rose said. "That hypnosis might be able to help me access my missing memories of the psychic event on the way back from the Foursquare stones. And I thought that it might work for Kyle, too."

"Hmm." Isabel considered that. "Rose, do you think that the Doctor might be able to shuttle back to Earth and pick up Amy DeLuca? And Maria too, I suppose, maybe Mister Valenti, and have them try to persuade her to come?"

"I suppose he probably can," Rose said, and laughed. "There's always the slight risk that we might be stranded her for a while, if he misses the landing point, but really, that almost never happens."

"Imagine how comforted I am by that assurance," Michael said. "Not."

"Well, we can figure that out when everybody else gets back too," Max said. "Which leaves the question of what we do in the meantime."

"Excuse me?" They all turned to see a little Antarian boy poking his head out from Max's patio door. Michael came closer and realized that the hallway door to Max and Liz's room was open, so probably the tyke had just wandered in. "Do you remember me?"

"Um - from two days ago?" Max said, smiling. "You're Zan and Vilandra's little brother, right? You and the Lady Ava and Lord Larek were the first ones to meet us on the beach." He chuckled. "Sorry that we haven't spent too much time with you - there's been other things going on."

"Yes - my name is Tolecnal," the little Prince said. "And Larek isn't a lord - they don't have nobility where he comes from."

"Oh, right," Isabel said. "But does he have a title? I know that he's an important man - he's going to be the head man of Rahlicx when he grows up, isn't he?"

"Yeah, the Autarch," Tolecnal agreed. "But I'm not sure if there's a word for somebody who's learning to be an Autarch. If there is - then I don't remember it, sorry."

"That's okay," Alex said. "So, do you have any ideas for something fun to do around here?"

#

"Let's go," Liz said, feeling somewhat sick to her stomach as the alien festivities developed further around the foursquare monument. Suddenly it all felt _very_ alien to her, and she didn't want to wait around to congratulate Zan and Vilandra on the successful death-defying stunt that they'd signed up for. As the others filed along after her, Liz windered just what the difference was between this and daredevils on Earth who risked themselves for fame or money.

Then again, she wasn't sure that she'd personally respect a daredevil much, and most of them didn't have other important responsibilities - or so much to live for.

And then again, did it really matter so much if the Royal Four were risking their lives, considering that they were doomed to die young anyway? But if they didn't die in the time and place that they were supposed to, Max would never have been created, and Liz couldn't bear that notion.

"Can you fly us back to the Palace?" the Doctor asked as he pushed past Liz and into the front passenger seat of the van. "Right now?"

"But - what about Mister Larek?" the chauffeur asked. "Not to mention the other members of my squad."

"You can go back for them, or they can find another ride," the Doctor said. "I am offended by this, and I do not want to have to remain to witness any more of it. Please, can you just take us away from here?"

The Antarian looked at him for a long moment, and then nodded. "Yes, of course, your Lordship." They all hurried into the vehicle - Liz climbed into the second seat behind the Doctor, and Maria and Jim went in through the back doors. "May I signal in to the switchboard?" he continued, gesturing at the com handset.

"Well, of course, my good man," the Doctor said as the van climbed up. "I'm sorry if my attitude was a bit much, but - possibly this was just too much to take so early in the morning. Why did it have to be done at this hour, anyway?"

The chauffeur held up the conn before bringing it to his mouth, a clear signal for silence. "This is Phoenix two to the forest nest, Phoenix two to the forest nest. Lord Time was indisposed, and his Earthling friends I think, so I'm bringing them straight home. Rahlicx prime and the rest of my squad are stranded at the four site."

There was a pause, and then the handset sounded a response. "This is the forest nest, phoenix two. Can you drop off your passengers as quickly as posisble and return?"

The chauffeur shot the Doctor a look, and he nodded. "Affirmative."

"Good speed, then, Phoenix two. Over and out."

"I'll make a good report of your service and discretion," the Doctor told the chauffeur. "Of course, for that, I'll need your name."

"Corporal Vannger, if it please your lordship."

"What pleases me, Vannger, is if I'm not addressed with overpompous formality and called 'your lordship,'" the Doctor laughed. "'Doctor' is all the title I ever aspired to."

"Yes - Doctor," Vannger said with a slight laugh.

#

Nobody was still at the balcony when they got back there, though there was evidence that a good breakfast had been had by Earthlings and hybrids alike. The Doctor stayed to enjoy the scrambled lizard eggs and daiberry popovers, but although Maria, Liz, and Jim were hungry for food, the curiosity about where their friends and family members were was strong enough to overpower that urge for a little while.

They searched for what seemed a long time, finding nobody but security guards and Ava's cousin who had only just woke up himself, until finally Liz heard somebody's footsteps as they walked through one of the downstairs foyers and set off in hot pursuit. She finally threw open a closet in a dim corridor, with Maria and Jim hurrying to keep up with her, and a little Antarian boy immediately told her "That's not fair!"

"What's not fair?" Jim asked, puffing.

"Having more than one person looking at a time - it's against the rules."

"Tolecnal, we're not part of the game of hide and seek," Liz told the little boy. "And I'm sorry, but I think that some of your playmates are not going to be finishing the game."

"Liz, are you sure we can't just..." Maria whispered to her friend.

"Maybe we could," Liz muttered and sighed. "But I'm not going to. I need Max, and the sooner the better." And she turned and hurried back down the corridor, shouting "Come out, come out, wherever you are!"

The ten of them had all gathered in the small dining room opposite their rooms, by fifteen minutes later. (Isabel had fallen back asleep, and it had taken them neary ten minutes to blunder across her hiding place once everybody realized that she wouldn't be coming out on her own.) Once everybody was gathered, the Doctor made sure that everybody had heard of his discovery about the psychic residue trace on the fin-car's keystick, and Jim Valenti explained the idea about using hypnosis to find out more about what had triggered the psychic events.

"Mom could help with that, I'm sure," Maria agreed. "But do we really want to go back to Earth, and the present, in the TARDIS, to find her?"

"I think that it's a worthwhile idea," the Doctor muttered. "Especially since - until this mystery is resolved, it remains possible that we have accidentally brought an outside influence into the lives of the Royal Four, that will alter their futures. None of us want that to happen and not be corrected."

"So wait a second," Liz said, a thoughtful look on her face. "Does this mean it's possible that you could get back to Roswell, and Mrs DeLuca wouldn't remember Michael or Max or Isabel?"

The Doctor considered this possibility seriously. "No - there's a vague rule of thumb about how long it takes for time ripples to travel into the future, and I'm quite sure that I can outrun them in the TARDIS - but we should be leaving as soon as possible, just to be on the safe side. Are you and Mister Valenti up for the trip? I shan't be able to persuade your mother without you." He sighed. "I don't do so well with other people's mothers."

Maria looked around. "Yeah - anybody else want to come, for moral support?"

Michael considered. "Should I come?"

The Doctor shook his head. "No, probably tempting fate - if your presence would be anachronistic, it just might attract unwelcome events ahead of schedule. None of the hybrids should come this time, I think. You're safer here."

There was a long pause. Liz seemed to be torn between coming with her best friend, or staying with her alien boyfriend. "It's alright," Maria told her. "We'll be back with my Mom before you know it."

"Alright," Max said. "Don't let us keep you particularly, but there are a few more plans to be made. I know that Isabel wants to mount an expedition to look for her necklace as soon as we can find transportation, and possibly native guides - but I think that everybody who'll be needed as a possible hypnotic subject should stay here in easy reach. That includes you yourself, Isabel, just on the off-chance that hypnosis could increase your recall of what happened before Kyle attacked you - and also Kyle and Rose."

"Alright," Isabel muttered, though she didn't sound happy about it. "What are we supposed to do in the meantime?"

"Maybe you could finish your nap," Alex told her. "You were up really early."

"No, my sleeping schedule has been thrown off, but I want to get it back on track," she said.

"So that it can just get settled when we take our next big trip through time, and throw it off again?" Rose asked her, as the Doctor, Maria, and Jim made their exits. "Trust me - get your sleep when you can and when you need it."

"Which reminds me," Kyle said. "Did anybody else get woken up by the Antarian lights, aside from Rose and I?"

That question stumped everybody. "I... I guess not," Alex said. "What lights?"

"As in, like the Northern lights?" Michael continued.

"Very much like, except not confined to the north - or the south or any patch of the sky," Kyle insisted. "They were surrounding the whole palace. Rose - you remember that part, right? If you don't, then maybe it really was a dream - except if it was a dream, how did we get out on the balcony together?"

"Umm..." Rose said, and thought hard. "Like a fog of bright pastel colors, every shade you'd find in a box of colored pencils?"

"Something like that," Kyle said.

"Then yes, I remember that - but just a moment," Rose said, frowning. "And that was the very moment when I saw the TARDIS flying past us in the night. Oh, I desperately hope that the phone box is there when they get to the next beach over."

"Wait a second, I'm completely lost now," Liz said. "There's a chance that the TARDIS won't be there?"

"She mentioned seeing the TARDIS in flight last night," Alex said. "About the same time that Kyle was saying that they only kissed, and nothing more. But I think there's something that I'm not following either. Is there any way that somebody else could get inside the TARDIS, or that it could take flight by itself?"

"There shouldn't be, as long as it's locked and the Doctor and I have the only keys," Rose said. "But I don't understand everything about it yet, by a long shot - and I know what I remember seeing."

"Hmm... that's ominous," Liz agreed. "So, moving on slightly - just a kiss?" She grinned over at Kyle, trying to put everybody at ease.

"I'm not sure that I'd say 'just,'" Rose muttered. "Nothing more physical, in the usual way, at least, not that I remember. But - is it possible that - I hardly know how to explain it..."

"Oh, did you have a _really_ good kiss-flash?" Max asked, reaching out for Liz's hand and squeezing it.

"From what you guys have told me about flashes, beyond even that," Kyle said.

"I don't believe you," Isabel said.

"Believe what you like."

"Okay, then try to put it into words," Alex said, laughing. "If you find that words can't measure up to the experience - well, maybe that's the same problem we've had for years trying to sum it up to you."

"Whatever, as if we care what you think," Rose said, and sighed.

There was an awkward silence for a moment. "Okay, I'm the one who had the least breakfast I think," Liz said.

"You know, I think I could go for an early lunch already," Michael put in.


	19. Chapter 19

The Doctor would have been quite surprised about Rose's worries over whether he'd be able to find the TARDIS phone box where they left it - though certainly interested in her reasons why. It did take a few minutes for the Doctor, Maria, and Jim Valenti to walk from the Brok Bay palace around the little stand of trees, but once they could see the next beach over, there was the police call box, waiting for them like it was some kind of guardian of the peace itself.

The Doctor lost no time in unlocking the TARDIS door, leading the way inside, and starting to make the adjustments to the instruments necessary to fly through the Time vortex once more, retracing their steps to the year 2001, and Roswell, New Mexico. Nobody said much, as Jim Valenti closed the behind them, and Maria simply sat and waited for the journey to begin.

Once the sound effects of the TARDIS had started, though, and the sensation of inertial effects pulling them one way and then the other, (not too intensely on this particular trip,) came as well, Maria sighed and turned over to Jim. "It's not going to be terribly easy to convince Mom, if she made up her mind not to come, is it?"

Jim weighed this thought silently for a moment. "Perhaps not. If we can get it through her head that we actually need her help, that this isn't just a lark of some sort, then she might not like us for it, but she'll come." He blew out a stream of air through pursed lips. "On the other hand, if we oversell the danger angle, then it might take her a while to stop freaking out and insisting that none of us should go back at all - or only to collect our friends and loved ones as quickly as possible."

"Right," Maria agreed. "Follow my lead, actually, I think I have a bit more experience at persuasive tactics with my mom than you do." Jim raised an eyebrow. "Yeah, yeah, you might have known her longer, before I was born even, but that's my point - for most of the time when I was growing up, the two of you weren't even talking."

"Fair enough," Jim agreed, nodding. "Speaking of which, when are we going to be arriving, Doctor?"

"Let me see, right about..." There was a sense of sudden impact, as if the police box had literally landed on a hard surface. "Pretty sure that we're where and when we need to be, but there was something a bit odd about that landing, can't quite put my finger on it."

Maria hurried over to the TARDIS door, opened it a crack to peek outside, and gasped, stepping away. She tried to reach out to close the door again, but it now wasn't within reach, and all of them could hear Amy DeLuca's voice coming from outside. "Umm - ladies and gentleman, I'm pleased to present to you, as an exclusive of the Alien Worlds bash at the Roswell 2001 UFO Convention... err, some kind of mysterious doorway to alien worlds!"

"Too right she is," the Doctor muttered. "I guess that's my cue to go out and put on a show. Let me see... what do I have that's particularly alien looking?" He considered a few of the obvious suspects, slapped an odd-looking cap on top of his head, wrapped a multicolored cloak around his shoulders, and picked up a rod-like contraption that was two and a half feet long and full of little projections that started to spin or wave back and forth or grow then shrink, as soon as he touched it. "How do I look?" he asked, posing for Maria and Jim.

"How - how did you do that?" Jim asked. The cap that the Doctor had donned seemed to have disappeared, but his skin was bluey-greenish, and his face looked remarkably Antarian.

"Levdorian disguise hat," the Doctor mentioned, and then pushed the TARDIS doors open ahead of him, then proceeded to make his big entrance and put on a show for the customers at Alien Worlds, which was one of the biggest alien souvenir stores in Roswell, and a business partner of Amy's.

At the height of the distraction of the alien spectacle, Maria managed to slip out of the TARDIS without calling too much attention to herself. A few customers did seem to notice her, but she figured that they'd just assume that she was a helper who had been helping to prepare the show 'backstage' and needed to come out on an errand. If anybody recognized her as the MC's daughter, that would only reinforce the impression. And if anybody thought it was unusual for the MC to be getting escorted 'backstage' by her helper and daughter, they kept it to themselves.

"No, come on, I made my decision," Amy said, looking around the interior of the TARDIS. "I'm doing as well as I can with three aliens in my life - or three and a half, however you're keeping count these days. But an entire planet full of them? No way."

"I - I let you get away with that, as long as it was just a question of coming along for the ride, for the fun of it," Jim started, and Maria shot him a look. "But - well, we need your help. Michael and Max and Isabel particularly, they need your help."

Amy looked doubtful. "What could I possibly help with?"

"A - a mystery," Maria tried, doing her best to keep her voice calm and reassuring. "A mystery that needs to be solved before we leave Antar for good - or it could hurt all of them, maybe even..." She trailed off, not quite sure how to explain the possibility that they could cease to exist, so the implication of consequences so horrible that they could not be named would have to do. "And believe it or not, one of your special skills could get us past a road block in our investigation."

Amy gave Maria her best 'Don't give your mother any bull-crap' look. "What special skill?"

Maria took a deep breath. This could be a key moment. "Hypnosis. We need you to help us access memories that Kyle might have repressed from a traumatic experience - and the Doctor's friend Rose, I told you about her, and maybe Isabel too."

"Hypnosis?" Amy repeated, torn between disbelief and intrigue. Maria tried to hide a smile and nodded at Jim to finish closing the sale as best he could. She was certain that he could manage it, now.

"So, are we all agreed?" the Doctor asked as he sprinted back into the TARDIS and tore off the disguise cap. Maria boggled in astonishment as he reverted to his relatively usual appearance. It wasn't like the cap had an Antarian prosthetic mask attached to it that the Doctor had also torn away - more as if the Antarian features on his face puffed away like mist, leaving just the semblance that was human enough to make no difference.

Jim turned to Amy, waiting for her final decision. "Yes, for as long as you need me, I'm along for the ride," she said, and sighed. "Is it a tough ride, travelling through time, Maria?"

"A little bit of turbulence, but nothing too bad," Maria assured her. "At least, nobody's actually gotten time-sick so far."

"Well, let's see if we can keep the streak going!" the Doctor exclaimed, returning to his controls. "And give the UFO fans a big finish to the show of course." As the TARDIS lifted itself into the time vortex, Maria could almost hear the vworp-vworp sound of it disappearing from inside the souvenir shop, and the convention attendees cheering at the 'great special effects.'

When they had landed again, Jim took the first look outside. "We're not back on the beach," he reported, sounding worried.

"Well, no - I'm more familiar with the area now, and figured that none of us really wanted to face that walk again - twice more, if we had an alternative. Do you mind?" Jim backced away from the door to let the Doctor pass, and followed him as he opened the door wide and stepped out. Soon the four of them were looking around, and Maria and Jim had come to the realization that they were inside one of the Brok Bay palace's courtyards.

"Okay, my apologies," Jim muttered to the Doctor, who nodded a trifle smugly, but nobody could hold that against him. "So, let's see, where's our balcony from here, do we have to?" The Doctor pointed to a single-story wall across the courtyard. "Yes, that's convenient too." He turned to Amy, who was looking as if she was only just managing to avoid freaking out at this much, and offered her his arm. "Let's go, my dear - Kyle and Isabel should be waiting for us on the balcony or in one of the nearby rooms, and we'll have to introduce you to Rose."

"Right, yes," Amy said. "If I focus on that, it might help. Umm - you didn't give me a chance to go and grab anything to use as a hypnotic focus."

"What do you need, just something that you can swing back and forth?" Maria asked. "Sparkly or shiny? I'm sure that we can find something that will work, in all of our baggage."

"Baggage," Amy moaned. "Is this going to take more than a few hours? I don't have a change of clothes or anything."

#

"No way," Kyle insisted. "I'm sorry, Isabel, I don't care how bored you are. If you're nearly a match for Whitman with that crazy hyperchess thing, then I'm not going near you on it."

"Quantum chess," Isabel replied offhandedly. "Which means that if he kicked my butt regularly, you'd consider it?" Kyle just shrugged. "How about some other game?"

Kyle looked from Isabel to Rose, back, and grinned. "Strip poker?"

"Hmm... has possibilities," Rose replied.

"Hah!" Isabel shot back. "_Maybe_ if Alex was here and into the idea, but not on these terms, thanks." She let out a long sigh, and just a few seconds later someone tapped politely on the door of Kyle's room, where they were all waiting. "Yeah, come in!"

"Hey, that's my line," Kyle muttered. "Or my choice." Isabel glared at him. "Well, whatever." The door opened and Prince Zan poked his head in. "Oh, it's your highness," Kyle said. "Didn't you go out with the search party?"

"No, as much as I hope that they find the Lady Isabel's engagement pendant for her, I thought that there were really enough people out on the search," Zan said. "And - well, I was hoping to spend some time with those of you who were remaining be..."

"Wait a second, **hold the phone,**" Isabel blurted out. "My what kinda pendant? Who told you that Alex had... huh?"

Zan looked around the room as if seeking a supporting opinion, then came fully inside the room and closed the door, leaning his back against it. "I'm terribly sorry, Isabel - either I or one of my friends who was telling me about your plight must have made an unwarranted assumption and come to a misapprehension. This - this necklace that you've lost and want to get it back - it's just an ordinary decoration?"

"Well, I wouldn't quite say 'ordinary'," Isabel told him defensively. "It was a birthday present from Alex, and... wait, you guys don't really have birthdays here, do you?"

"Not as a very significant occasion, no," Zan admitted. "They're celebrated more on Rahlicx, and Larek has told me about their birthday customs. Actually, I've had a birthday party and birthday gifts myself, while staying at the Autarch's capital with Larek. Their customs aren't too difficult from our naming day festivities." He smiled slightly. "But continue on - you were speaking of why the necklace is dear to you."

"Yes, I guess I was," Isabel agreed. "I like it a lot, I love to wear it, especially for special occasions or when I'll be spending time with Alex, and I know that he thinks it looks beautiful on me. But it doesn't have any particular implications or significance for our future together. He's talked about buying me a promise ring, around graduation time this year - I've already graduated high school, but he hasn't yet, and..." She trailed off a bit uncertainly.

"So rings are the traditional gifts for commitment between two people who are in love or bonding, on Earth?" Zan asked. "Finger rings?"

"Yeah, pretty much," Kyle agreed. "Promise rings, engagement rings, wedding bands. In American culture, and a lot of others too. Is it always neclaces or pendants, on Antar?"

"Generally, yes," Zan agreed. "There's a spiel about how the chain circles round the head and the pendant hangs close to the heart, but I'm not going to inflict that on you." He chuckled. "I'm sorry, but perhaps you can see how we mis-interpreted. If Vilandra said that she'd lost a beautiful ring, that Rath had given her.."

"Vilandra and Rath!" Rose exclaimed. "That Kindarra thing, that you were playing the game about. Does that mean that Vilandra's agreed to marry Rath?"

"No, umm, not quite, but it might be an analog of your promise ring," Zan said with a smile. "Though it's also a very valuable item in its own right, an heirloom of Rath's family, and a powerful tool in the hands of a trained woman."

"Only a woman?" Isabel asked, curious.

"One of its mysteries," Zan agreed, smiling. "It was Rath's inheritance, but he could not use it himself - and grew up being told that it would be a gift to the girl he grew closest to. I think his father didn't want him to give it to Vilandra until the formal betrothal, but Rath was too curious to see what she could do with it. It changed hands when he officially received permission to court her hand."

"Okay, I think that's enough talk about the ladies' bling," Kyle put in pointedly. "Was there another reason you wanted to hang around with us, Highness? Or are we just an excuse to avoid the search for Isabel's birthstone?"

"Well, Ava mentioned something about the hypnosis trick that you're going to be trying to use to figure out the secret of the psychic events," Zan replied. "Frankly, she wanted to be a witness herself, but she had to go and serve as guide to where Kyle was found yesterday. So I'm under orders to report back to her about all the little details - that is, if you don't mind my watching."

"Umm." Rose shared glances with Kyle and Isabel, and shrugged. "I don't feel self-conscious about it or anything, no." There was a tap on the balcony door, and all four of them looked up. "Oh, good thing too, because the Doctor's back. Hopefully he's brought our hypnotic specialist."

"Yes," Zan said, and looked around inside the room. "Isn't somebody going to go to the door and let him in?"

"Oh, right, that should be me I suppose, since it's my room," Kyle said, and got up. "You know, you could have opened it from outside," he said. "Especially you, Dad."

"Perhaps, but we didn't want to intrude - too abruptly," Jim Valenti said.

"Nicely put," Isabel said, and laughed. "So come on, let's get this over with."

"No, come on, Isabel, you're..." Amy DeLuca shuddered slightly as she stepped up to the threshold of the room. "We're none of us going to get anywhere with hypnosis and that kind of attitude. It's something that you have to be patient with, and more than a little relaxed." She sighed. "Especially me, because I have to lead the way into relaxation, and I'm not doing that well with Antar so far, I'm afraid. And do we all have to crowd into this little room, really?"

"Hello, and welcome to our world, my lady," Zan said, standing up and formally bowing to Amy. "Certainly you have a point - why don't we all abandone this little crowded room and take our ease on the balcony, for now?" Isabel nodded slightly. "My name is Zan, by the way, and this is my family's house."

"Zan," Amy repeated, and took a deep breath. "As in Prince Zan?" Zan nodded. "Jim told me a bit about you. Oh, and I'm Amy - Amy DeLuca, Maria's mother."

"It's a pleasure to meet you, Amy," Zan said, and turned to the other Earth natives. "Can any of you think of something I can offer that might help Amy feel more at ease? I'm not sure if Antarian relaxing beverages have quite the same effect on human metabolisms."

Maria grinned. "I think that some Rynec would suit the moment just right, and before you call for a servant or anything, your highness, I think that I can handle the need at this moment." As everybody else stared, she took off for her own door off the balcony, and emerged carrying an oddly shaped glass jug with a handle and a tubular spout on it, and clutching a few Antarian teacups in the other hand.

Isabel chuckled. "You just happened to have a pitcher of Rynec in there?"

"That was Michael's idea," Maria said. "I've been having so much of the stuff that he said it was easier than heading out to find a kitchen or a dining room every time I wanted a cuppa. It's almost as good as Mocchacino that way, though a completely different kind of taste experience." She peered at the cups, and passed one to Maria. "Clean this for my mom, please?"

Isabel stared at the cup as if worried that it might sting her. "I seem to remember telling you many years ago, Maria DeLuca, that I might be willing to use my powers to heat up customer's food and drink, in an emergency or if you asked nicely, but that I drew the line at using them to clean up somebody else's dishes."

There was an odd silence, and Maria started to laugh, shaking her head. "Well, I don't mind," Zan said, reaching over to take the cup from Maria's hand. Isabel tried to get to it first, but she was a little slow to react, and so was Maria when she tried to retrieve the dish for her friend.

"I'm not really that stuck-up, seriously I'm not," Isabel protested as Zan focused on the dish. "Just - well, I was making a joke, that probably not many people at this table we capable of appreciating."

"I think I got some of it," Kyle volunteered. "That was about the time that you volunteered to help at the cafe, because Liz's grandmother was sick, right?"

"Yeah," Isabel said. "You remembered that?"

"I remember how good you looked in the uniform," Kyle said, sighing in remembered appreciation.

"Oh, and here I thought you'd have been a little too busy getting my brother beat up to notice little things like that," Isabel shot back.

"Hey, that was not my idea, for all that Liz broke up with me over it, " Kyle complained.

Zan was looking around in confusion after putting the clean cup back on the table, and met the Doctor's raised-eyebrow look. "Do you have any idea what all of that was about, Doctor?" he asked.

"Not the specifics, no," the Doctor allowed. "But the Roswellian contingent has a lot of shared history that I wasn't in the loop for. I only met them a week or so ago."

"A lot of shared history is probably putting it mildly," Amy said. "I was in town when Liz's grandmother passed away, I remember that, but wasn't aware of any of the rest of this."

"Oh, mom, let me finish getting you your drink," Maria said, taking the cup and pouring expertly from the jug spout. "You should find this pretty relaxing, I hope. It's fruity and sweet and very rich."

"Okay, so let me try to get this straight," Rose asked as Amy took her first sip of Rynec. "Kyle, you and Liz used to go out, except - except somebody beat up Max and she blamed you for it, and gave you the boot?"

Kyle turned to her, and seemed to take a moment about trying to figure out what to say, as Maria and Isabel watched him with superior feminine grins on their faces. "That - that was a long time ago, but yeah. Liz and I started dating the summer before she really met Max - as in, when she found out the big alien secret and everything," He sighed. "I guess I got jealous when I saw the sparks flying between them, when I really should've just gotten out of the way. And no, Liz didn't really believe that I'd ordered my friends on the football team to pound Max, not after I'd told her I didn't. But she did point out that it was ultimately my responsibility, because I'd been complaining about him enough that they got the idea that he was moving in on my territory, and from there on it was just football jocks doing what all jocks do." He looked back at Rose. "Any other questions?"

"Just one, but not for you," Rose said, and addressed Isabel. "You used to work at the Crashdown, too?"

"Not for long," Isabel told her. "Maria guilt-tripped me into helping out while Liz's family was busy visiting the sick grandmother in the hospital." She sighed. "And that was before I was really friends with either of them, and before I'd gotten to know Alex at all, really. I'd probably be more gracious about coming back to work if there was the need for it, more recently - but nobody's asked me."

There was a pause, as Amy drained her cupful and Maria poured her a refill. After taking one more sip, Amy looked around. "Well, I guess the next step is for you to tell me, as simply as possible, what the circumstances were of these missing memories, and what you most need to know."

#

"Tell me what you see."

Kyle looked around, marveling at the scene that seemed to be nearly frozen in time, though Rath was moving slowly through the air. "We're at the Foursquare stones, the four of us - myself, Rose, the Lord Rath, and her Highness. Rath is demonstrating levitation tricks, flying through the air and he just finished doing a kind of a somersault. Princess Vilandra is just starting to throw a pretty good hissy fit.

"That's good." Kyle couldn't see Amy, but it was hard to mistake her voice. The hard part was in facing the notion that everything that Kyle was seeing was illusory, a memory re-awakened through vivid hypnotic trance, and he was really back on the balcony with Amy, Prince Zan, and the other members of their party. "You don't need to tell me everything that she says at this point, but I'd like the high points, and tell me everything that anybody does over the next minute or so.

"Alright." Kyle repeated parts of Vilandra's rant, feeling a bit funny about saying the bits with mature Antarian words to his nearly-step-mother, but to him they qualified as 'high points,' and it was hard to resist Amy's cues. Seemed easier not to bother. "So Rath swoops down over us, and says that he's not ready to go back yet, and Vilandra's all 'last chance', and she uses her powers to pull the key stick away from Rath and carefully waves it back at him. She tells him that he can still drive his precious car, if we leave now."

"Now, let's stop there for just a moment," Amy said. "Since you first met Rath and Vilandra, this is the first time you've seen anybody but Rath touch the fin car's key stick, right?"

"Yes, definitely," Kyle said. "I didn't even see Rath touch it that often - when he started the car, of course, and when he parked it by the four stones he took it and put it in his jacket side pocket."

"Alright. And can you tell me anything about Rose as soon as Vilandra has the key stick?"

"No, umm, not really - she's turned to look at the Princess, which means that she's facing away from me. She seems to be interested in what's going on, as far as I can tell from her body language."

"That's okay. And how close are Rose and you to the Princess?"

"Rose is really close, close enough for either of the girls to touch the other's head or torso if they reach out, except that they don't," Kyle answered. "I'm nearly six feet further away."

"Okay, so what happens now, how does Rath react?"

"Umm - Rose says something to the Princess actually, 'get 'im girl' or that kind of solidarity remark. I complained that it was really unfair, just sort of mumbling to myself because I didn't want the girl power police on my case. Then Rath landed, he seemed really disappointed more than anything else, and Vilandra kisses his fingers and gives him back the key-stick. We all get back into the car and get in - oh, I get a look at Rose's face as soon as she turns around, and I guess that she seems kind of preoccupied or tired, as if she's really been out for too long and just wants to get home."

"Alright," Amy continued. "Keep paying attention to Rose, to her face, to as much as you can tell me about her mood."

"Well, let's see," Kyle said. "We both get in the back of Rath's fin-car, and it's getting dark. I'm paying more attention to the outside than to Rose, I'm afraid, but I... I do remember looking back to her and noticing a fierce smile on her face. That's just before we hit the first downdraft, and the winds get stronger and the car loses power. Rath lands us, Vilandra's acting very quiet, like she's either concentrating on something or half asleep. And Rose starts to complain a bit at Rath, and that's when Rath starts to act all macho and say that 'the men' can fix it. I'm a disappointment to him I guess - don't have Antarian powers to help with the repair or even make a light for him, don't know anything about the machinery that goes into the car, but I hold a glowing orb in the right place, and he checks everything out."

Kyle paused, wondering if Amy would prompt him again, but she stayed silent, so he decided to just continue. "Nothing's wrong in the engine, Rath suggests that somebody could be using their powers to drain the engine's juice, and Vilandra snaps at him, says that he's being paranoid, but we should call for help on the com handset. Rath doesn't really answer one way or another, so Vilandra calls to security, using some fairly ridiculous sounding secret service code names. They tell us that there's a psychic presence outside, near us, and Rose starts chanting out."

"I don't think you need to repeat the words for me," Amy said. "We know enough about that part. What happens next?"

"I try to get inside to help her, but the door is locked, and by the time I figure out how to unlock it, Rose has collapsed. Security is asking us what the heck is going on, and Rath calls for emergency help as soon as possible, saying that we're red as blood." Kyle sighed. "But we're not, really - the storm and the winds die down almost immediately, and by the time the groundcars from the palace arrive, the fin car is working perfectly again."

"Alright, thanks Kyle, that was good," Amy told him. "Do you want to come back to us now, or are you good to move on to the second time, the siege game with Isabel?"

"I'm up for getting it over with as soon as possible," Kyle insisted, and almost in the blink of an eye he was standing in the palace room he shared with his father, listening as somebody climbed the balcony stairs. "Okay, I'm peeking out of my room, and I see Isabel the rebel, on the balcony. She's munching on a yellow finger cake and looking around the scene that we left behind as all of the other defenders abandoned the balcony for a more fortifiable location, leaving me behind to stand guard. But anyway, Isabel has a look on her face like she's lost track of a makeup compact or her purse and is trying to figure out if she left it there."

"Hey!" Isabel's voice came faintly through the trance-vision.

"Please stay quiet, Isabel," Amy warned. "Alright, so what do you do next, Kyle?"

"I slide the door open and stand where she can see me. She looks up but doesn't say anything, because her mouth is full of cake, so I mutter 'well, look who's here'."

"Alright, and how does Isabel react?" Amy asked.

"Well, she swallows so that she can talk, and then tries to go all alien princess badass and intimidating, asking me if the princess is there and if I was the only defender in the area. Somehow, I guess I could tell that she was just trying to be a good diversion - partly from her attitude, and partly because I knew that she didn't really want to push through an attack to the Princess Vilandra." He almost explained more, then remembered that Prince Zan was listening, and possibly he'd already said too much.

Amy managed to cover with just the right amount of naivete, however. "She doesn't like the Princess, even to get that close to her?" Kyle grunted ambiguously. (He didn't really want to lie about that.)

"So I start baiting her a little, 'why don't you tie me up already,' that kind of thing, because I know that she just wants me to call for help or do something else to help her make herself an effective diversion than she could be by herself. And Isabel, well, she throws a hissy fit and picks up one of the mugs from the table and throws it in my direction. I dodge, and it lands on the paving stones next to me and shatters."

"And what does Isabel do next?" Amy prompted.

"I - I don't know," Kyle admitted. "The replay, the memory, it kind of freezes at that point, just after the mug had broken away in pieces."

"Try to get to what's next, Kyle," Amy said. "It's okay if you have to skip over a bit, but try to tell me as much as you can."

Kyle got to what was next. Unfortunately, he couldn't say anything about it for a moment.

Because he was drowning in watery mud, that was slamming at him from one side, and then another. Every time he tried to open his mouth, it got full of the gunky stuff, and he was flailing helplessly with his arms and legs just trying to stay afloat. Dimly, very dimly, he could hear Amy's voice rising in panic. "I don't know what's wrong, I can't snap him out of it when he's like this. Isabel, can you do..."

And even more faintly, Isabel's reply. "I... I'm trying, he won't let me in, it sometimes takes a while when the subject isn't properly dreaming..."

And then - there was a hand, catching his, pulling him somewhat out of the mud. Kyle went along with it, and felt his knees bump painfully against something hard. Then he was able to use his free hand to clear the muck out of his eyes, and he realized that he was half sitting and half lying on a rough wooden raft. Looking around further, he saw that though the raft was floating in the muddy lake or swamp or whatever it was, the storm that had made the water so active seemed to be dying down. And he looked up and beheld his rescuer.

To no particular surprise, it was the Doctor.

"Don't ask me how I pulled this one off," he said in a low voice. "Never managed to psychically enter somebody else's hypnotic vision before - not that there's been much of a reason to try. Maybe spending so much time with your friend Isabel has had a bit of an effect on me."

"I..." Kyle started, and then spat out a fair quantity of brown water before starting again. "I was just wondering where you got the raft."

"It just sort of came with me when I entered the scene," the Doctor muttered. "I was trying to bridge through as a representation of order and safety, so I suppose this was what I needed to be safe in the scene, and to make you safe." He looked around at the mud. "This is what happened when you - when you tried to move forward into memories of the psychic event itself?"

"Well yes, I guess so," Kyle admitted. "There was a storm, and I was drowning in the mud."

"Not a good sign," the Doctor admitted. "Well, should I try to sail us out to safety, or press on? That much is up to you."

Kyle considered it. "Do you think that we need to go on to figure out what's happening with the psychic events?"

"No, now that you come to mention it, I think that we don't need any more clues from repressed memories," the Doctor allowed. "I've got a theory. Proving it out will have to be done in the real world, so help me turn this raft around."

Kyle staggered up. "So, how exactly do we do that?"

#

"Very well, let us review the sequence of relevant events," the Doctor said, once he had snapped out of his psychic trance and Amy had brought Kyle out from his own hypnotic regression. "Rath and Vilandra take Kyle and Rose out to see the Foursquare stones, the first night that we were here at Brok Bay. Rath drove the fin-car himself, as was his custom - he never allowed anybody else to drive it, but in exasperation and impatience, the Princess Vilandra seized the fin-car keystick from him with her powers and demanded that he drive her home or she would drive the fin-car himself. Rath accedes to this demand, and on the flight back, Rose manifests with a psychic event - winds, rain, the draining of the fin-car's power systems, and a little speaking in tongues."

"Right," Kyle said. "So? If there was some critical clue there, I didn't see it."

"This fin-car keystick," the Doctor continued, brandishing a small silver rod in the air, "might look mostly innocent, but it is in fact the equivalent of a 'murder weapon' for this non-murder mystery. I suspected that when I touched it last night, again out by the side of the foursquare stones. There is a psychic key pattern, not strongly felt now since its work has been done, but the trace still remains."

"How did you get that again?" Zan asked the Doctor. "I slipped it into Rath's room last night."

"And I slipped it out again this morning, after we returned from your foursquare demonstration," the Doctor told him. "It was important, after all. So - the only two people who touched the key stick on the night in question, at the scene of the event, were Rath and Vilandra, and Rath had handled it often before, and well before the event began. My theory is that the psychic charge inside it was triggered to Vilandra, to her touch."

"That makes sense," Zan said, a little doubtfully.

"Since the hypnotic sessions that you were sent to observe are complete, I think that perhaps you should go and find your parents and relate what we have found so far," the Doctor continued. "Your highness. It would mean more to them coming from you, and this is important."

"V-very well," Zan said, rising and bowing awkwardly. "Thank you for helping us with this little problem, I'm sure." He turned towards the doors. "With somebody's permission..."

"Go through our room, if you like, your majesty," Jim Valenti offered, and Zan did.

"There's something that you're not telling that boy," Amy pointed out as soon as the hallway door to the room had closed. "I've read some mystery books in my time, and from everything you've said, neither Vilandra nor the key-stick were anywhere near the balcony when Kyle had his own 'psychic event.' How could they be the triggers?"

"They weren't - that time," Isabel said. "I see it now - It was me, because I'm just psychically close enough to Vilandra that the same trap would work on me - and we can't let Zan, or any of the Antarians, guess that much. The other half of the key would have been - the mug that I threw at him. I'm sure it would have been the first time I'd touched that particular dish." She looked over at the Doctor. "Do you suppose whoever planted more than the two trap items for Vilandra?"

"I'm not sure he planted two deliberately," the Doctor said worriedly. "I offered Rose some Antarian restorative soup the evening after her event in the fin-car, out of a mug quite like the one that Isabel and Kyle described. After making sure that it would be restorative for humans as well, of course." The Doctor paced across the balcony with restless energy. "I'm not sure if that's a co-incidence."

"So let me try and follow through your theory," Valenti said, getting into the armchair sleuthing. "This psychic booby-trap or whatever it is must have been designed to perpetuate itself - Vilandra touches a key item, frees the evil psychic genie from its bottle as it were, and that psychic presence 'possesses' somebody nearby - ideally whoever has the fewest psychic defenses. First Rose, and then Kyle. When Rose had finished her own psychic trip, she accidentally charged the mug with the psychic trap, and Isabel let it loose the next day."

"So where's the trap now?" Kyle asked, worried. "What did I touch or handle first after I was brought in? Could the psychic trap be in that horrible bed they put me in downstairs?"

"No, I don't think it works on beds, or it would have been in mine," Rose put in.

"Plus, I touched that bed when I went to check on you last night," Isabel told Kyle. "Would have started the whole craziness going again if that was it." She drew in a deep breath and faced the Doctor. "It doesn't seem that Kyle had it when his psychic event ended, but - could he have implanted the psychic trigger charge in my birthstone pendant?"

"O-ho," the Doctor said, thinking over the possibilities. "Since we don't yet know all the rules, that does sound plausible. It was certainly something that Kyle's 'possessed' alternate identity was very focused on."

"And Vilandra is out with the search party, looking for the birthstone," Maria said, her words coming out in a rush. "Each psychic event seems to be worse than the last - what if Vilandra touches the birthstone, and Alex goes psychic event - or Liz."

"We have to warn them," Valenti decided. "Get on one of those com handsets, down in the switchboard room."

"No, we can't go that way," Isabel shot back. "There's too much about this theory that the Antarians can't find out about, until we know all the answers and can figure out what to tell them."

"About you and Vilandra?" Amy asked. "I think that we can cover up that bit."

"It's not just that," Isabel said. "I'm thinking about who might have motives to lay a trap of this kind for the Princess Vilandra. We have to be very concerned about changing the timelines. If it's who I'm thinking of, then we can't let King Sanren know the perpetrator unless we're absolutely sure that was in the history of Antar before we started messing with things. It could start a war too early, and change the lives of the Royal Four."

"Oh," Kyle said, nodding. "You think that it's..."

"Who else would have this much control over mental powers, and want to torture the Princess by surrounding her with hauntings?" Isabel filled in, nodding. "This could be step one in Kivar's creepy seduction plan, as much as it kills me to think of that. He might not have laid the charge himself, but I believe that some of his lackeys were in the palace recently. He must be behind it."

"Well, then, if we can't use the Antarian's communicators, then how do we warn the search parties?" Amy asked Isabel.

"You can leave that part to me, I hope," Isabel shot back.


	20. Chapter 20

"Wow," Alex said, blinking slightly, and walking over to Isabel where she stood next to the line of trees with dark red, hollow conical 'leaves.' "How - how did you get here without my noticing a vehicle arriving or anything?"

"I didn't exactly get here," Isabel put in, and smiled, though Alex felt himself frown with confusion even through his happiness. "It's never been quite this easy to get through the distractions of the conscious mind before, though I guess I've never tried to get to you while you're awake, especially since..." She trailed off. "Anyway, that's not really what I need to tell you about."

"So, you're dream-walking me?" Alex said, wonderingly. "Or mind-walking, I guess I should say, the way you've done to Max before?" Isabel nodded. Alex looked around and realized that he could hardly hear the sounds of the other searchers nearby talking to each other, though the chatter had been loud a moment ago - that must be a consequence of the way his mind was tuning into Isabel's signal, he decided. The rest of his senses were getting less bandwidth, though the forest still seemed to be in clear and brilliant color. "Okay, what's the emergency?"

"How do you... oh, right, the only thing that would drive me to this extremity, huh?" Isabel realized, and Alex nodded. "Though maybe now that I know it isn't so tough with you, we could try this again sometime. But you're right, that there's a reasonably dire need at the moment. The Doctor, he's found out the mystery of the hauntings, or at least come up with a pretty good theory. If we're right, the birthstone necklace is the key - the psychic ghost is in there, so to speak, and if the Princess Vilandra picks it up or touches it, then the ghost will manifest and try to possess you or Liz - and we don't know what it'll make you do this time. Since you're out looking for buried treasure, it might make you start digging underground, and that could be really dangerous."

"Okay," Alex said. "So there's really a ghost?"

"No, that was just a metaphor that got somewhat out of hand," Isabel said. "It's more like a flash, I think, but it's a flash that's designed to get out of hand and overwhelm somebody's personality temporarily. We still don't know all the details."

"Got it," Alex said. "But it's triggered only by Vilandra - or by you?" Isabel nodded. "So we'd have to figure out a way to get rid of it before you get the birthstone back."

"Yeah," Isabel said. "But that doesn't matter now. You need to..." She cocked her head, listening intently, and then disappeared in a split-second. At the same moment, the voices came back up to full volume.

The first words Alex heard were: "Oh, is that it?" And they were spoken by none other than Vilandra herself, probably a few clearings over.

He dove into action as quickly as he could, realizing at the same moment that Isabel must have been able to hear some of what he was missing, and that she had terminated the link in the hopes that would save seconds versus trying to explain the direness of the situation. Furiously, he pushed himself through 'jog' and into a dead run, still paying as much attention as he could on where he placed his foot for each pace. Tripping over a root or a stone would cost far too much time.

He didn't want to get possessed by an alien flash or anything of the sort. It would also not be good for that to happen to Liz, especially if that ended with her getting crushed in some underground cave-in.

As he got close, he risked paying a little less attention to his footing, and a little less to speed, in order to focus on listening again and homing in on Vilandra's voice. But when he heard her ask, "Do you mind if I have a look?" he instinctively tried to go into hundred-yard dash mode, (not that he'd ever really been that good at track and field,) and glanced off the edge of a tree trunk that he hadn't even noticed.

However, that might have been a partly fortunate event, in that the recoil brought Alex into the same clearing as the Princess. She was standing very close to Max, who was holding the necklace out for her to take. Alex was still at least fifteen yards away from both of them, and he screamed out "_No_!" as he rushed to intercept the hand-off. And then he did trip over something and measure out six feet, two inches in the dry ground of the clearing.

He looked up again as soon as he could manage it. "No?" Max asked questioningly, and then seemed to notice the gold chain hanging from his fingers, and Vilandra's hand which had just nearly clasped on the peridot setting. At the last possible instant Max whisked the necklace away, and the Princess looked disappointed and angry all at once.

"Umm, it's a bit hard to explain at the moment," Alex muttered, hoping that Max would recognize that as a cue to not ask him many questions in front of the Princess. "But - well, I'm worried that if the Princess touches the necklace, she might trigger another psychic event - in me, or Liz maybe."

Max considered this and nodded, stuffing the chain and pendant into his pocket. Vilandra looked much more dubious, as could be expected. "I can picture some key item and the right person triggering a psychic reaction like that, I suppose - and I was nearby for one of the events before. But why the necklace, particularly? I haven't seen it before, and though it was nearby when Kyle went psycho, I wasn't." Her mouth wrinkled up. "I hope this isn't just a belief that I caused the first event, the necklace caused the second, so that if the two of us meet we could cause a much bigger one."

"Umm, no, it's not just that, I think." Alex sighed. "I could be wrong, I definitely admit that, but we should check the necklace out before letting you near it, Your Highness. Umm - maybe Liz would be able to tell, she was sensitive to the psychic presence both times after it manifested, right?"

"And are you sure that it would be safe for Liz to touch it?" Vilandra asked, exasperated. Max shot Alex a look, and he shrugged.

Liz, however, was exploring another area about half an hour's walk away, so they had to prevail on Vilandra to drive them in a small air-car that she had borrowed to help in the search. Once Liz had hugged Max hello, and Alex had explained the situation to her, Liz agreed to take the necklace for a chance at a flash, and she notted as soon as the gold surface touched the palm of her hand.

"It's nasty, Max - are you telling me that you couldn't feel even a trace of that?" Max shrugged a bit uncertainly. "I certainly believe that the trace inside here could have driven Rose and Kyle a bit crazy, if it had been broadcast in the right way. And it wasn't here the last time Isabel let me handle the piece - which was a few months ago, admittedly, but I don't think we brought the ghost with us. Could Kyle have implanted it accidentally while he was possessed?"

"We don't know," Alex said, though he was gratified to see Vilandra nodding in acceptance of that possibility. "I - well, I got a sort of a message from the Doctor about the danger of letting Vilandra touch the necklace, before it's been taken care of somehow." That was a half-truth or less, but he didn't want to let Vilandra know that Isabel could mindwalk if there was a way of hiding that information.

"So, what did the Doctor say that we should do next?" Liz asked.

"He didn't," Alex admitted. "I had to move as quickly as I could to keep Vilandra and Max away from each other, so we hung up on each other." Pause. "Not away from each other in the sense that you or Rath might be jealous of, I mean..."

"Of course, I knew that," Liz said with one of her gentle and beautiful smiles. "Well, I suppose it makes sense to call off the search and go back to the Palace." She sighed. "And get something to eat. How late in the Antarian day is it now?"

"Late enough for tea, at least," Vilandra said, looking at the blueish shadow that she cast in the orange-tinted Antarian sun. "We all had a pretty early lunch, before heading out on this search."

Alex shot Max a look, wondering what would be awaiting them when they got back to the Brok Bay palace. Max just shrugged.

#

By the time the search parties had arrived, the King and Queen had been informed about the potential solution to the psychic event mysteries, and even the word about the retrieval of Isabel's birthstone necklace had reached them. An elaborate afternoon buffet meal had been set out, and the returning questors were encouraged to join in.

Max and Liz took only a quick first pass along the table of Anarian delicacies, and paid more attention to looking for somebody who could explain what was going on while they'd been gone. Max had hoped to get a word with his sister, but she rushed over to see Alex as soon as she spotted them, and Rath was hanging around close to Alex. Liz pulled up seats for both of them opposite Rose and Kyle.

"Good afternoon," Kyle said in his calmest tone. "Tried the steamed calbaree?"

Max didn't dignify that with an answer. "Hasn't anybody been asking awkward questions around here?"

"Not since - since the Doctor had a private word with Their Majesties," Rose whispered back. "I don't know what he told them - it can't have been something that would upset the timeline. I don't even know how the King and Queen told Zan to stop pressing on the truth."

"They'd have their ways," Liz pointed out. "I'm not worrying about our secrets any more - for a little while. Food is good, and that's enough for me." She took a bite out of a layered pasty that tasted more than anything else of a bacon s'more. Despite this description,she loved the mix of flavors.

"We can be satisfied with food for the time being," Kyle put in, "but I think that our secrets won't keep at Brok Bay for long now - certainly not the rest of the week that we were invited to stay by His Majestywhen we arrived. I don't know what the Doctor said any more than you guys do, but if I was anybody in the Royal family, Id wat to know who it was who hatched this plot for Vilandra - which we know, and can't tell them."

"We have a guess, and no proof" Rose corrected him. "Would there really be dire consequences if King Sanren can guess, but not take action?" Kyle and Max shrugged. "After all, if we're worried about the timeline, we have to ask what might have happened if we weren't here. We know that the hauntings can't have killed Vilandra, or any of the other Royal Four..."

Max jumped slightly in his seat. "Could they have been what killed His Majesty?"

"No, we found references to that on Kaalto," Kyle whispered back, looking around the hall. "And don't speak of such things, even if no-one can hear. But we know - how that King from long ago was assassinated. Nothing to do with Brok Bay or hauntings."

"So, can we let them examine the psychic traces left on the birthstone for themselves?" Liz asked. "That's a key question, I guess." She sighed, disappointed that her resolution to not worry about alien secrets over tea had lasted such a short time. "If they would have got the hauntings under control in the end, anyways..."

"But we don't know how," Kyle replied. He seemed to be having some fun playing the role of temporal Devil's Advocate. "What if one of the key items was just lost in a crack in the floor until Vilandra went back to the capital city - or somebody threw it into the waters of the Bay?"

"Well, we can examine the birthstone ourselves, first, see what we can find out from it," Max decided. "If that looks like enough to be dangerous, then maybe some of the traces get accidentally disturbed, we're so very sorry." He sighed. "And getting back to Kyle's more general point about overstaying our welcome, I think I 's the soonest we can take off without appearing discourteous to our hosts?"

"After Zan's big naming day party tomorrow, I would think," Liz said. Max shot her a look. "Yes, I'm looking forward to the festivities, but it's not just that. Ava made a point out of saying that she wanted us all to be there."

"Okay, tomorrow night," Max said, and picked something else off his plate,which was nearly empty. "Once more through the buffet line, my darling? Liz was also nearly out of edibles.

"Umm, yeah, just give me a minute," Liz said, looking around. "Oh, and then we should say hello to Maria's mom, see how well she's acclimating to being here."

"Well, good luck with that," Kyle muttered.

Liz shot him a look. "Something I should be warned of before I go in?"

Kyle just shrugged, and Liz turned to Rose, who was blushing slightly. "She - she caught a look and started asking me a lot of questions," the British girl explained. "But - well, as fond as I am of Kyle, I'm certainly not planning on signing up for the extended Valenti-DeLuca family."

"Fair enough," Max said.

"Yeah," Liz agreed. "Maybe I can say something to her to help explain that. Somehow I doubt that Amy's never had a passionate summer romance of her own."

"Ehh, don't knock yourself out on my account," Rose said. "She seems like a nice lady, but again - not really looking to bond with Kyle's soon-to-be-stepmother."

"Fair enough." Liz swallowed a small piece of fruit and then stood up. "Okay, ready honey."

#

As the Antarian sun dropped close to the horizon over the waters of the Bay, members of the TARDIS expedition to Antar gathered on their balcony again. Rose and Kyle hadn't attended themselves, preferring to socialize with Rath and Vilandra, and Jim, Amy, and Maria were talking together in Jim's room, with the curtain closed. Everybody else had come in response to the Doctor's call.

"Ooh, it seems to actually pain me to stay away," Isabel complained as the Doctor held up her birthstone, and Alex squeezed her shoulders comfortingly with an affectionate arm. "Would I have to actually touch it to trigger an event?"

"I suspect so," the Doctor said soberly. "The psychic mechanisms seem to be similar to your 'flashes', and those are drawn from touch contact, as I understand, not 'just a couple of inches away' proximity. Still, it seems better for you to give it as wide a clearance as practical."

"Yeah," Alex agreed. "Just to be on the safe side. So what's next, how can we probe into the mysteries of this thing?"

There was silence, and everybody turned to look over at the Doctor. "No, sorry, I'm afraid I can't solve this one for you," he insisted. "I was able to read something of the enormous energies of the foursquare stone, but the subtle distinction of this trap is something completely different and off my radar, as it were."

"And mine," Max agreed. "The only people who've reacted to it from our company have been Liz - and Isabel, of course, if we count the mug. But that would be the wrong sort of reaction."

"Wait a second," Michael said. "Doctor, you sensed the traces in the key-stick. Weren't those fainter than the active trap would be?"

"Also qualitatively different, perhaps," the Doctor said. "I don't have high hopes, Mister Guerin, but you should probably try touching the chain and stone yourself."

"Well, okay," Michael said, and held open his hand for the Doctor to pass the item along. After only a moment, he shrugged. "Maybe a very slight trace, but nothing I could really tell you much about."

"Well, this is getting us nowhere fast," Isabel complained.

"Have patience, my lovely," Liz quipped. "Well, I guess I've got the strongest resonance to it, but I'm not sure of the right way to use it. There's a distinct feel to the menace there, but I've never felt Kivar's mind, or any of his higher-ups except for Nicholas I suppose, and I don't recognize him in this thing."

"Maybe if you try to get a flash of how the trap got laid in the first place," Max suggested to his honey. "You could get a glimpse of a face, and we could find visual records to compare it against."

"A flash of faces, through two intermediary stages?" Liz asked. "I feel as if that would work better with the key-card."

"I think my better half got that back after the search parties returned home," Michael said. "He'd found out that he was missing it, and got pissed."

The debate continued until the sun had sunk entirely beneath the waves, never really getting anyway, though Liz tried several different techniques for scrying into the past of the necklace and the psychic baggage it contained. Finally, exasperated, she held it in her hands, squeezing her eyes tight for a long moment, and then looked around at all of her friends. "All gone, or at least I left as little trace as I could," she declared, and hefted the tiny little bundle of gold and jewel in one hand. "Catch." Only Isabel had any time to react as Liz threw the necklace, and all that she managed was instinctively to do as Liz had suggested - and then half the group, including Isabel and Max, gasped when they realized what Liz had done, and the implications if her effort to expunge the psychic trap hadn't been successful.

They all sat there for nearly ten minutes in silence, those with any psychic powers straining them to the utmost searching for any hint of a haunting presence, but there was no such sign. "Okay, I guess that's that," Max said, taking one of Liz's hands in his. "Sanren can borrow the birthstone, briefly, if he wants to, but I doubt that he'll have much luck with it now."

"Do you think he'll throw a royal hissy fit over what Liz just did?" Michael asked.

"He doesn't seem to be at all the hissy type, royal or not," the Doctor said.

"And I don't care if he does," Liz said. "Isabel wanted the necklace back, I did what I could to make sure that it would be safe for her to touch her own gift. That's that."

"What can we add to that?" the Doctor asked.

"An ETA for our flight back to the present, and Nunyes moon?" Alex chimed in.

"Tomorrow evening, about 2200 local time," Max suggested, and the Doctor nodded. "I've spoken with Ava, and the Prince's party should be winding down by then. The Royal four want to say goodbye to us all outside the TARDIS doors."

"Sounds alright to me," Isabel said. "Being too close to Vilandra isn't so bad, as long as she won't guess who I am."

"And what are the sleeping arrangements for tonight going to be?" Liz asked, a small sparkle of mischief in her eyes. "With Amy along, we're one over capacity, unless we take the sixth room."

"Let's work it through, shall we?" Michael suggested. "Since she's nervous about this at any rate, Amy should be with whoever would make her the most comfortable."

"Which could be her daughter," Alex suggested, and Michael scowled in disagreement.

"But is probably Mister Valenti," Liz finished, with Michael nodding, more pleased with that. "And if Kyle gets to room with whoever he likes - maybe he'd want to stay with his summer love."

"If Rose is alright with that change then I certainly am," the Doctor said. "As far as my own accommodation is concerned, I can retire to the TARDIS for the evening, especially now that it is parked on the Palace grounds."

"Fair enough - assuming that Mister Valenti, Miz DeLuca, Rose,and Kyle are all fine with the rooming assignments that we've been throwing around on their behalf," Max said with a soft chuckle.

"Yes, but there's something that I don't understand," Liz said, turning to the Doctor. "Aren't you - in love with Rose yourself? I don't mean to pry, but - well, I got that impression after we came here, and... I guess I was just wondering why you seem to be so okay with Kyle monopolizing her."

"What is this thing you Earthlings call love?" the Doctor whispered faintly, staring off into the distance, and everybody started to laugh or giggle as they realized that he was kidding. "I - I care very deeply for Rose Tyler, and want only what's best for her. My own wants and passions don't matter in comparison with that. Being with me, like that - dancing that dance with a time lord, it would be very intense for Rose, and possibly dangerous at this point. I think that you all have some notion of the difficulties involved in interspecies romance with even the most similar of cultures. If she's ready for that before our pathways separate, then I'm looking forward to the opportunity. For the time being, though - I think this dalliance with Kyle will be good for her, she's obviously having a lot of fun with him,"

"That makes some sense, as far as it goes," Max agreed. "But a word of warning from our own experiences - don't let yourself get to the point where 'she's not ready for it' is a crutch, something that you're taking as an article of faith no matter what Rose has to say for herself. You don't want to take a step back for too long."

"Or make yourself a stone wall," Michael chimed in, laughing.

"Or say that you can't be with anyone," Isabel finished. "We've all been there, and done that, and regretted it at leisure. Be cautious about it yes, but jump into the deep end when you have a chance."

"Well, that's advice that I didn't expect to be hearing from anybody today," the Doctor admitted, shaking his head. "Which means that I won't soon forget it. Thank you all."

"You're very welcome," Liz said, grinning. "Okay, so what else does the evening hold for us? I don't really want to turn in just yet."

"You're coming with me to see Prince Zan and King Sanren," Isabel insisted. "To explain what you did to the necklace. After that, you can please yourself."

"Fair enough," Liz said, and turned to Max. "Willing to come with me to see the Prince?"

"Umm - no," Max said, and sighed. "I'll wish him a happy naming day tomorrow, though."

"Just what is the deal with this naming-day stuff?" Michael asked. "I mean, does everybody not get named until they're a few weeks old, and that day when they get their name is their naming day all their life, or is it like there's a big calendar of names, so everybody who's named Zan or Piltook celebrates a naming day on Feblueberry thirty-second?"

There was a short beat, and then Isabel, Max, and Liz all erupted in wild laughter. "S-s-sorry man," Max managed after a little while between heaving gasps. "I needed that, but - really, Feb-blueberry? That sounds like it belongs on the promotional calenders of the cartoon breakfast cereal company or something."

"I think I've come across it in some whimsical fantasy paperback series," Alex said, grinning widely but not joining in the laughter as heartily as the others had. The Doctor just looked bemused. "In any event, I asked Vilandra about that during the siege - before Kyle went psychic-event, and she explained that it's mostly about the names themselves, and what day the names fall on in the traditional calendar, yes. But it usually amounts to the same thing as the other way, because usually the parents will pick the name so that they'll actually be naming the baby on his first naming-day."

"That makes sense," Liz said. She'd quieted down her own laughter by this point, and put a finger up to Max's lips, which did help to shush him up. "Are Antarian kids only ever named out of the traditional book, though? No room for parents to innovate or name their kids creatively?"

"You're one to talk about that," Max teased her. "In fact, we all have very 'traditional' names for where we grew up."

"I didn't get a chance to ask about that," Alex agreed. "But surely we'll be able to before we have to go." He turned to Isabel. "Do you want me coming along for moral support too?"

"Not really, but your company is always appreciated," she told him.

"**I'll** take moral support!" Liz declared, and Max and Isabel laughed.

"I think I'm going to go see if I can track down the lady Ava," Michael decided. "If we're going to have to vortex away tomorrow, then I think I'd like to ask her a few more questions about her background. That might be useful for when we brace Tess."

"Okay, I'll come along for that," Max said.

"One thing that you should probably know," Isabel said, and sighed. "Sorry that I didn't mention this before, but things have been so crazy with the hunt for my birthstone and the psychic events looming over us and all. Ava - when I joined the Rebels team in the siege, I let her connect with my mind."

An ominous sort of quiet descended around the balcony, as the twilight started to deepen. "Do you know how much she read?" Max asked, his voice mild but every word measured carefully.

"Pretty much," Isabel agreed. "That the three of us believe that we're part Antarian, and that we came from her future. None of the specifics about our connection to the Royal Four or anything like that - at least, I'm pretty sure I was able to block those thoughts off from her, and she didn't bring them up."

"Why did you agree to that?" Liz asked. "I mean, I can understand that you wanted to win over their loyalty, but did it occur to you that you were taking much too big of a chance over the siege game?"

"I don't know," Alex said softly. "I mean, if she'd backed out when they asked her to let Ava connect, maybe it would have been risky that way too. We wouldn't want to get the Royals wondering exactly what secrets she was so afraid of giving up."

"Right," Max said. "I'd probably have made the same call if I was in the same situation - but it's water under the bridge anyway. Is there anything else important that she knows about us now, Isabel?"

Isabel closed her eyes, concentrating hard. "Let's see. She does know that I can dreamwalk, that the three of us grew up as orphans, that you saved Liz's life, and we think she's taken on some Antarian traits because of that link. Umm... also, she knows a very little about the special unit trouble that we've had on Earth, and about your history with Tess - but not her own connection to Tess, obviously. She thinks that we were trying to get to Tess, and got flung back in time accidentally."

"Right," Michael said, after a moment. "Well, that's a long list, but none of it sounds very bad stuff to have let slip. I guess either you're good at guarding the most important secrets in a connection, or we're all lucky."

"Yeah," Max agreed. "And thank you for letting me know now, Isabel. This may well change the conversational tacks that we'll take with Ava." He squeezed Liz's hand, and they stood up at essentially the same time. "So, Doctor, what are you going to be up to now?"

"Well, I think that I'll tag along with you gentlemen, if you'll have me," he said, smiling. "Not to ask questions, just to listen, really. I'm as curious about what this 'past life' stuff means in practice as you are, and I never met Tess."

"Alright," Michael said. "Just call us the three Asketeers."

"Huh?" Isabel asked.

"Like musketeers, but with asking questions," Michael mumbled. "Never mind, it was a joke that occured to me on the spur of the moment, and I guess I should have taken more time to consider it."

"Ehh, I'd rather have a bad joke than no joke at all, so thank you Michael," the Doctor said, as Max and Liz kissed. They made as if to head off in different directions, then Liz turned to Isabel. "Do you know where we're finding the King and Prince Zan?"

"Not a clue," Isabel admitted. "Max, do you guys know where you're going?"

"Just looking for one of the help, to send a message for us," Max called back as he stepped over into his and Liz's room.

#

"So, tell me about where you come from, Rose Tyler," Rath suggested. Along with Kyle and Vilandra, they were sitting in a small lounge on the bottom floor of the palace, which seemed to be dominated by a sort of an Antarian fireplace, though exactly what was burning inside Kyle could hardly guess. Whatever it was, though, gave off a soft purple glow that didn't really hurt his eyes to look at, though, and just enough heat to warm them without overwhelming them in this small space, nicely balancing the small amount of evening breeze that came in from the one small window in the room, which Vilandra had opened. "We've told you a lot about us, really."

Rose turned to face Kyle, as if hoping that he'd somehow get her out of this. "Go on, honey," he said softly. On one level, he felt very relieved that Rath had picked on Rose - there might be a lot of things that he could safely tell Rath about Roswell, but considering that so much of the town had been shaped by the fact that Rath and Vilandra's remains had crashlanded into the earth not far away - well, not even their remains, but the embryos of their replacement bodies... well, it was a very awkward subject, and he didn't feel much shame at letting Rose take the hit to divert conversation from that direction. London had to be a much safer subject - there had never been any alien sightings there after all, had there?

"London is, umm... it's a big city, and full of people and things happening, but I'm not really sure what to say about it," Rose started, speaking irregularly and pausing frequently, as if trying to find the right words was something that was causing her a lot of difficulty from time to time. "I guess it never held my attention that much - or maybe it was my own life there that I never found exciting, which is why I jumped at the chance to travel with the Doctor when I first met him." She sighed. "Well, let's see. I grew up in a council estate townhouse, which is a kind of - it's a long building that's seperated into many different homes, but each one has their own doors to the outside, and no interior doors to the home on each side, just a solid wall seperating you from the neighbors. It's cheaper than building seperate houses for each family."

"That's a clever idea," Vilandra said. "I don't think we have such a thing on..."

"Of course we do," Rath said. "I've seen rowhouses like that in Little Gevinor outside Karamtha, and a few of the smaller towns in Tilles that my father's visited and taken me with them. You wouldn't see them in the center of the capital city, because land is so expensive. Even many of the rich only have a flat on a skyscraper."

"Yes, that'd be the same with downtown London," Rose agreed, smiling. "You have skyscrapers too?" Both Rath and Vilandra nodded, and Kyle wondered to himself just what Antarian word the TARDIS translated 'skyscraper' into. "Our estate was a lot further out. And another thing - it wasn't really ours, or a rental that Mum had found for herself. The council - the government, had ordered estates like that built, and they were assigned to people who needed a place to live, at a lower rent than you'd pay for a similar place that was on - umm, on the open market, I suppose."

"Right," Rath said, nodding slightly. "Is this the city government, or planetary?"

The question got both Rose and Kyle snickering. "Earth doesn't have a unified planetary government," Kyle told Rath. "There's a sort of international association for squabbling purposes, the United Nations, but that doesn't really have any authority. There are sovereign nations, which control different areas of the land, but - I don't think this is connected to the British national government, is it, Rose?"

"No, not really," Rose agreed. "Nor even London city hall - the councils are even a smaller level, each representing smaller neighborhoods within the city. But I didn't mean to get us sidetracked onto political matters, so let's see, what else about me?" She sighed. "Grew up without really knowing my Dad much. He died when I was just a baby. Grew up running a bit wild, did alright in school when I was paying enough attention to it - had a couple of boyfriends on and off, especially Mickey. Had a job as a shopgirl in the West End, posh place in Knightsbridge actually, but... well, I could certainly never see myself working at that kind of place my whole life. Neither could my supervisor, actually, which was an entirely different issue." She sighed. "And then one day, the mannequins started to move."

"What?" Vilandra exclaimed. "What's a mannequin, and why doesn't it usually move?"

Rose looked around. "Oh, that might be something that you don't have here on Antar - or maybe you haven't had to go to clothes shops yourself, your Highness, if the designers come to you or something." She sighed. "Maybe I shouldn't have said anything, but - whatever. A mannequin is a sort of inanimate object in the rough shape of a person - they're dressed up in clothes for sale, in a shop, to demonstrate how they'd look when actually being worn. Most of the fancier ones, you can alter the pose by physically bending the joints, but they don't do that themselves - at least, not any mannequin that I'd ever seen before."

"Oh, alright, I see," Vilandra said. "So what was it, some new invention?"

"Not an Earthling one," Rose said. "It was something from another planet, the Nestene consciousness, trying to take over the planet Earth as a new food planet. And, I'd have died in that invasion, if it hadn't been for the Doctor, just happening to wander by and realizing that we were in trouble."

"Oh, I see." Rath shrugged, as they all fell silent for a long moment. "Okay, do you guys want to ask one of us a question now?"

"Is where your family comes from very different from here, Rath?" Kyle immediately asked. "Tilles, right?"

"Well, Tilles is a sizable chunk of the planet actually, and the Selezirs have been from North Tilles for hundreds of years," Rath said with a little smile. "And yes, in a lot of ways it's very different from Brok Bay. It's cooler, not cold all through the year, but big swings of cold and warm, and it's quite flat with no lakes at all - some streams and a few rivers, but that's about all. Unless we get heavy rains and the whole plain looks like a gigantic lake about four inches deep, or a very wide and slow rushing river."

"Interesting," Kyle said, smiling. "Is that like a desert? I grew up in desert country, more or less."

"Umm, no, not a desert, I'd say," Rath replied. "Mostly tall grasslands, with some small stands of forests here or there, mostly on the slightly higher rises, where they're not in much danger of getting flooded out. The grass can just start over again from seed after a flood, but trees take longer, you know?"

"Yeah, I get the idea," Rose said. "And what about the towns of North Tilles?"

#

"Liz, Alex!" Missus DeLuca called, hurrying down the corridor to catch them before they'd entirely disappeared down one of the palace's spiral ramps. "Oh, and hello Isabel, too."

"Hi, Amy," Liz said, smiling at her. "Where did Jim and Maria get to?"

"They went looking for Kyle and Rose," Amy said. "Jim said that I could just keep in the room if I liked, but - well, I was feeling a bit claustrophobic in there, so I decided that getting lost in the palace was preferable." She scanned around. "I'm no longer so sure about that."

"Well, we can lead you back to the rooms and the balcony," Liz offered.

"Only if it's not a bother," Amy insisted. "Where were you off to?"

"Umm... back to the rooms and the balcony," Isabel repeated. "Where else?"

"But - but I don't remember going up a level," Amy protested, waving to the ramp.

"Oh, that," Alex said, taking Amy's arm with his and leading her down the ramp. "There's a tricky effect in the upper levels of this palace. I haven't run into it myself, but Larek was saying something about it last night at tea. If you go around the right sequence of corridors, around the perimeter, then you can get from the second floor to the third, without actually having climbed stairs or an obvious ramp. Because a lot of the hallways are just slanted a very little bit upward."

"Oh," Amy said, and plodded down the spiral in silence for a moment. "Larek - haven't I heard that name before? Was he the one who was - umm, paying visits to Brody Davis, at the UFO center?"

"Oh, umm, yeah," Liz whispered at Amy. "Best not to say much about that either, but - he's a young Antarian now, or a young Rahlicx, and the Prince Zan's best friend."

"Oh, I see," Amy said. "Yes, somebody mentioned something about that... and then, later, he..."

"He's been picked to rule one of the nearby planets, Rahlicx," Isabel told her. "They have a senate, but the chief Administrator isn't elected - he's picked based on computer tests, and educated to be an efficient ruler, sworn to serve the will of the senate - and they can get impeached if they don't stick to that. It won't be Larek running the show over there for many years, though - there's another Autarch-in-training in line before him."

"Okay, I see," Amy said, nodding. "Thanks for explaining it to me so clearly."

"My turn to ask you something," Alex said. "What did Jim want to ask Kyle and Rose about?"

Amy shot Alex a look, and started to snicker. "Somehow I think that you know what we have in mind, young Mister Whitman. The subject is rooming assignments. I'm afraid that I want to be with Jim for the night, so - well, we were wondering if Kyle would be happy somewhere else."

"Yeah, we were all talking about that earlier," Liz admitted. "I have to admit that I'm a little surprised that you're actually okay with Kyle and Amy sleeping in the same room."

"Well, it's not like he's my own son, yet," Amy said, with a little smile. "All of you kids have shown us that you're mature enough to be making your own decisions, and that does include Kyle. After all, if I'm not making a fuss about Maria being with Michael, then I'm not going to get too preachy about Kyle and his new friend. Somehow I'm not sure that Kyle will take it too far, anyway, just because he might have an opportunity."

"And did you think about where the Doctor would go, if he was bumped out of Rose's room?" Isabel asked Amy mischievously.

"Well, I thought that maybe it would be big enough for all three of them," Amy shot back, just about as coyly.

"I don't think I can really picture that one happening," Liz said. "But I guess we'll find out." They finally got to the bottom of the ramp. "Okay, we're - this way, right?"

"Indeed," Isabel said, leading the way down the corridor to the right.


	21. Chapter 21

"Hello, who is it?" Ava called as the three men filed out a narrow palace door and into the moonlit Proper Gardens. Max rather thought that the Antarian girl could have identified them easily if she'd only turned around, but instead she remained facing away from them, as if she were staring fixedly at a couple of fruit trees in bloom - which were impressively colored tonight, he had to admit.

The Doctor cleared his throat. "Michael, Max, and the Doctor," he called out softly, leading the way towards Ava at a measured pace.

Now Ava turned halfway around, reacted with a small smile when she saw them, and waved them along. "Sorry, but I always wanted to play out that little scene, I'm not really sure why, except that I've seen it on so many of the holo shows. I'd have continued it for longer, except I couldn't think of any variations that had the heroine being confronted by three such handsome men at once."

"You'll have to write one," Michael suggested jokingly.

"Perhaps. That's not really one of my talents," Ava decided. "Thank you for coming to pay me a visit, though. The garden is beautiful, but such beauty is never best when it's contemplated all alone - and none of you exactly detract from the scenery." She laughed playfully.

"You're in a flirty mood tonight," Max told her as they got close, hoping that was all that it was. "I hope that His Highness isn't the jealous type."

That made Ava laugh. "Not about joking around like this."

"I'm glad to hear that," Michael agreed. "So - is your big surprise for Zan tomorrow all ready?"

"Yes, I think so, and thank you," she said. "For all of your help with this. Did you come and search me out just to ask that?"

"Not really," the Doctor told her. "One first thing - we're going to have to be leaving tomorrow, soon after the naming day party is done. I wanted to make sure that you knew that."

"Yes, I'd already heard that, my Lord," Ava answered, looking up and up to him, moonlight shining prettily off her eye. (Ava was definitely petite, Max realized, probably even shorter than Tess was, and the Doctor was taller than he was.) "Is there some emergency back home that you have to deal with in time?"

Michael snickered. "By the way, Isabel just told us about how much you really know. Where we came from, that sort of thing."

"Ahh - where you come from, everybody in the Royal Court knows by now," Ava corrected. "When you come from, not so much. Thanks for letting me know that you know that I know. I didn't want to be the first one to give away my own secrets vouchsafed from the Lady Isabel. She seemed to be worried that you would be upset when you found out, Max."

"I wasn't wild about hearing it," Max admitted with a little smile. "But maybe things are better this way. So, no, there's no pressing emergency back home - and even if there were, the chances that we would arrive 'in time' to deal with it have nothing to do with how long we spend here at Brok Bay - and depend much more on the Doctor's skill in piloting the TARDIS." He shot the Doctor a look, and the Doctor rolled his eyes good-naturedly. "Now that the cause of the psychic events has been stopped, though, it seems better for us to be leaving soon. We definitely don't want to change our own pasts."

"Right," Ava said. "Of course, there are a few loose ends to the case of the psychic events that His Majesty will be sorry to not have your assistance in tying up - like who planted the trap resonance in Rath's car key-stick in the first place, and why Isabel just happened to be close enough to the Princess Vilandra's psychic signature to trigger the trap one time."

"I'm sure that he would," the Doctor said as neutrally as he could. "And I wish that I could stay longer, but it is not to be."

"And where are you headed next?" Ava asked wonderingly. "Into Antar's future, or its present from your perspective, two hundred years from now?" Nobody answered, and she sighed. "I wish that I could come with you, and see what you're going to see."

"I can imagine, but that won't be possible," Max told her softly. "That may seem unfair to you, since we get to travel with the Doctor, but..."

"But I'm destined to be too important a person, for my planet," Ava said. "I never really realized that before, but somehow, the way you look at me and talk to me, I can guess. Queen Ava, that's what the history books will call me, isn't it? And I'll have children with Zan, and one of them will be a King in his turn, and the others princes and princesses." She sighed contentedly. "It actually sounds like that might be fun. But that's why you can't show me the future of the planet, isn't it? Because if I say the wrong thing to the wrong person, I could change that future, and change your past."

Max and Michael stared at each other, not sure what to say. "That's more or less it," the Doctor agreed. "I'm sure that you can understand if I don't want to confirm specific details."

Max immediately made an attempt to change the subject completely, before Ava could get them back into dangerous territory. "The trees are beautiful, especially in the moonlight," he said. "Do you know what species or variety they are?"

Before answering about the trees, Ava paused to look over her shoulder at the moon, which wasn't far above the horizon, but beautifully full, despite the fact that it looked noticeably smaller than the Earth's moon. "Umm, the trees? I think that they're called coughwood, actually, which never struck me as a very pretty name for such a pretty plant. What do you think?" She stepped closer to one of the trees, reaching out for the green-yellow petals of one flower but not actually touching them. "The flowers only open up at night."

"Very pretty flowers, very silly name," Michael agreed. "By the way, I was meaning to ask about the moon - or moons, I suppose. I know that I've seen more than one at night, though there only seems to be the - relatively big one out."

"Oh, you don't even know about the moons of the Antarian sky?" Ava told him, smiling. "There are four, and I think that two are in the sky at the moment, though the other one is really small and far away, so it's hard to spot. Hmm..." She looked around above her for a long time, and pointed to a constellation nearly overhead, more or less to the right of the moon that they'd already spotted. "Do you see the six stars, nearly evenly spaced?"

"Yes, definitely," Max said. The stars making up that grouping weren't all equally bright, but they did seem to mark out the corners of a regular hexagon quite well.

"And there's another 'star' that's inside the formation, but off-center?"

Max nodded, then realized that Ava wasn't looking at him and couldn't see the gesture. "I do," the Doctor replied, also gazing up into the sky intently.

"That's our furthest proper moon, not the smallest but it looks too small to really make out as more than a point, on account of the distance," Ava told them. "Evabes. And of course, we can all see constant Nunyes, keeping her course in the slow journey around our sky."

"That's Nunyes?" Max exclaimed, caught by surprise. Of course, he knew that the place that Tess had taken over in the future was one of the moons of Antar, but somehow he hadn't ever expected to actually see it in Antar's sky.

"Yes," Ava agreed. "I'm not surprised if you've heard something about it, even if you couldn't recognize it. Easily the most beautiful of all our moons, and as it happens it's just far enough away, and circling around our planet, that it nearly keeps pace with a particular spot on the surface as Antar spins around. Which means that Nunyes only rises and sets once every eighteen and a half days." She considered it. "It must have risen about two days ago, around the time that you arrived here more or less. I almost wish that it were higher in the sky for tomorrow - when I have my big moment with Zan. "'The moon's noon' is supposedly a very romantic time for our people. Perhaps when Zan and I wed, it'll be a night-time ceremony at the moon's noon."

"I'm sure it will be, and I hope that it's worth it," Max told her, and Ava giggled in reply to the way he phrased it. "So, if Nunyes takes days and days to rise and set, does that mean that it goes through phases over the course of a single night? If we stayed up until nearly sunrise and looked at Nunyes again, it would be close to the same spot in the sky, but because Antar had turned so much, it would be a crescent?"

"Yes, that sounds right," Ava agreed. "Do you want to hear about the other moons, even if we can't see them at the moment?"

"Sure," Max agreed, though deep down he was thinking about Tess taking over 'the romantic moon,' the loveliest one. What did that tell him about her hangups and what she would be like to deal with when he got there?

"Well, if we wait long enough, we'll probably see Carves going by." Like all the other moon names, Ava pronounced it with a hissing 'ess' syllable at the end. "That's the lowest one, and the smallest, it looks about half the size of Nunyes, or maybe a little - slightly reddish all the time because of the metallic rock it's made out of, and lumpy. It zips around Antar at least four times a day, so you'll see it nearly every night, if the weather isn't too cloudy, and it doesn't go too far north or south to be made out from wherever you are. And Dimaras is much further out, like Evabes, but big enough that you can just make it out as a tiny but perfect circle in the sky. I don't think it'll rise into our sky until nearly morning, though."

"So, four moons?" Michael clarified.

"Traditionally, yes," Ava said. "Those are the ones that Antarians spotted before they had made spaceships, or even discovered the optical principles to invent viewing instruments and magnify the sky. Since then, we've discovered a number of other natural satellites orbiting us, including a few that are just slightly bigger than little Carves, but those are so far out that you can't spot them without binoculars or something like that."

"Interesting," Max said. "And how many of them have been settled, now that you have space flight?"

"All of them, I think," Ava said. "Mostly Nunyes and Dimaras, each of them has underground or domed cities with, umm, I don't know, millions of settlers, I guess. Carves has a permanently manned observation platform, but that's probably only twenty or so staff on board at any one time, and Evabes - I'm not sure, I think that there's a space telescope built there, and a mine, but I really can't remember how many people work there."

"That's alright, I won't tell anybody that you forgot one lesson," Michael teased her. "That does give us an idea." He took a deep breath. "Do you mind if I ask you a bit more about your life, from before you and Zan met?"

"Sure, I guess," Ava said. "Any particular questions, or would you just like me to ramble about my background as best I can? I'm getting pretty good at telling people the story of my life at Royal parties."

"Maybe we'll start with a few questions," Max said. "Any brothers or sisters?"

"Two sisters," she replied. "One older half-brother."

"Oh," Michael faked disappointment for an instant and then seized on that line of questioning. "So, did your half-brother's other parent - I mean, did one of his parents die, or did they split up, or..."

Ava laughed and shook her head. "They were - they were very young when they had Froush, and hadn't contracted a permanent bond or anything. It was an ugly Zhorva situation, actually."

"An ugly what kind of situation?" Max asked, looking around in something that might have been alarm but didn't really get that far. "I'm sorry, the TARDIS didn't translate the word."

"Something that doesn't pertain in English," the Doctor said, "and that you don't have enough experience to relate to."

"Did you get it, Doctor?" Michael asked.

"Partly - the Gallifreyan word was an awkward contraction, but I got some of the sense of it - all about young love gone wrong, and difficult partings, and psychic abilities in a situation that doesn't make them gifts, but rather the reverse." He looked over at Ava. "Is that on the right track?"

"Yes, rather," Ava said, nodding. "I suppose, come to think of it, that you're lucky that you didn't get Zhorva by accident, growing up on a place like Earth without anybody to teach you that much about the more trying aspects of your powers. It could have ruined your lives, actually, getting stuck in it without knowing how to break free. But both of you seem very happy with your lady friends, and so do Isabel and Alex. Maybe that was good luck, or maybe growing up in Earth society helped you to avoid it, I don't know." She took a deep breath. "But - well, have either of you experienced the sort of intense emotional bond that your powers can create when you're very deeply in love and close to your partner? It's partly a question of self-reinforcing empathic feedback, they say - if you each feel how much the other person cares for you, that tends to increase and deepen your own feelings, assuming that no ugly little subconscious secrets come out to break the cycle."

"Max and Liz have," Michael put in, chuckling. "Maria and I have only felt a little bit of that, I think, and Isabel and Alex have reached a bit more. But the first time it happened to our dream couple - watch out!"

"Yes, I can imagine," Ava said, smiling. "But - well, Zhorva is something that happens when a couple has a certain amount of time when things are good, to reinforce the closeness of their connection, and then less positive emotions start to cycle through the feedback link - resentment, bitter jealousy, or dysfunctional relationship habits, say." Now the smile was gone, as she shook her head somberly. "In a true Zhorva situation, the connection itself becomes dysfunctional, actually - the lovers cannot be happy together, and cannot break free of each other's lives. The connection helds them tight, trapping them in the nightmare of a perfect love gone wrong."

"Oooh," Max went as Ava finished, as if he had been kicked in the gut. "I - I think that might have happened to Liz and I. We went through some bad times, after-"

"After Tess got pregnant?" Ava filled in.

"Yes, and after she left Earth," Max agreed. "We'd been through a lot, and weren't quite sure how to get back to just being in love together without all of the melodrama, and I was a little obsessed with finding out what Tess had done with my daughter, and when Liz went through the hard parts of adapting to her own Antarian powers, being close to me was hard on her." He sighed. "I'm glad that we were able to work through all of that without getting into this Zhorva stuff."

"You could have had it with Tess too, maybe," Michael guessed. "If you really opened yourself up to her, and we didn't figure out what a sneaky and manipulative bitch she truly was."

"I do think that as fascinating as all this is, we're getting somewhat wide of the point," the Doctor suggested. "So - Ava, was it your father and his old girlfriend, or your mother and a beau from long ago?"

"My mother," Ava filled in. "Yeah - I think that they'd realized that it was Zhorva and that they were no good for each other by the time Mom realized that she was pregnant, but she still wanted to keep the baby, and raised him with her family's help for a few years until she met Dad. There - there are special procedures that specialists can use to seperate Zhorva couples, to safely break the links of their mental and emotional connections, and having a baby together actually complicates them. They had to rush ahead with the procedure, and I think that part of it - well, Froush never really seemed to care at all about his natural father, Carrin. I think that was because when they were cutting the bonds linking Mom and Carrin, there was some kind of link connecting Froush and Carrin that had to get seperated as well, but I'm not sure if that's real or I just made it up." She took a deep breath. "Next question?"

"Are your family political at all?" Max blurted out. He hadn't meant to put it this way, but it was one of the things he really did want to know about, and maybe after such an awkward conversational turn, Ava would appreciate the direct segue.

"Well, they never seemed to be, until I met Zan," Ava put in and giggled. "Now they act like the biggest patriots around for the Liaret royal family, but I do have my own doubts about how sincere that is."

"But you don't think that they'd ever work with someone one else against Zan and his family?" Michael put in. "Sorry, I shouldn't even have said that, it was a stupid thing to bring up, try to ignore..."

"I'm not sure if I can entirely erase it," Ava said. "But no, I don't think so - Dad may skim from his taxes every year, but there's a long way between that and revolutionism."

"Indeed there is," Max agreed. "Okay, umm, what else? Maybe you should start with some of your usual canned spiel."

"Actually, I think we've heard most of that, right?" Michael put in, turning to the Doctor. "Our little dinner party, the first night, right? You were downstairs, Max."

"Okay, okay, then you ask a question about something that she didn't cover," Max suggested.

"Hmm." Michael took a long time thinking about that. "How did you first meet Zan? I don't think that that came up."

Max shot Michael a dirty look, but he just shrugged that off, and Ava didn't seem to notice. "Oh - **that** story. Yeah, Zan gets a bit embarassed when I tell that story around him, so I guess we just skipped over it - or maybe neither of us realized that you hadn't heard. Let's see, my side of it, well, it was a weekend back a year ago or so, and a few casual friends from school invited me to come along with them for a trip to the seaside, a few hundred kilometers away from Capital city. It was kind of fun, we went on a hoverboat tour of the glades, had lunch at a grill stand on the beach. After lunch, I had to 'wash my face' at the Personal, and after I came out and was looking for the school friends, I bumped into a handsome young man who was on his way toward's the males door."

"Ahh," the Doctor said, smiling slightly. "And that young man was Prince Zan?"

"No," Ava told him. "It was Larek, actually. I excused myself for not watching where I was going, and he was very charming, and we introduced ourselves - and he continued along to take care of his own business."

"Right," Max said. "So where did Zan figure into it? I guess that the two of them were down at the seashore together."

"Oh, I remember, Zan did mention something about Larek introducing the two of you," Michael put in. "And you kept talking about refugees."

"Yes," Ava agreed. "But I didn't even know that the two of them had come together, when I met Larek, and he didn't say anything to me about anybody else. I just went and found my friends, and we ended up sunbathing together on Dimaras rock for most of the afternoon."

"Dimaras rock, as in, like the moon Dimaras?" the Doctor inquired, sharply interested.

"Yes," Ava confirmed. "The rock on the seashore originally fell from space, we know that for certain now. Local legend has it that it was a part of Dimaras that was knocked away by an asteroid impact or something else of the sort, but nobody's ever confirmed that particular idea. Still, everybody calls it that."

"Wouldn't a chunk of meteorite that was big enough to, you know, have a bunch of friends lie down on it at least, also have blown out a pretty big crater?" Max asked.

"I think that originally it did, but the weather reshaped the land in that area," Ava said. "Anyway, can I get on with the story?"

"Certainly," Michael said. "You were sunbathing with your friends all afternoon - and as a guy I do have to ask, were they all as cute as you are?"

Ava shook her head and didn't even take the bait that time. "A few suitable came by as the afternoon was getting late; Kraulissa and Babnee ended up accepting an invitation to go to dinner with them, the rest of us went to a different eatery, across the lane, and when we met up afterward Babnee said that we were all invited to this party at the vaction house of the Breoll ambassador. I didn't really want to go, because from what I've heard about Breollyn, they didn't really seem like fun people to me, but the girls talked me into going - and then somehow, five minutes after we got there, they'd contrived to leave me behind and I couldn't track any of them down."

She sighed, her eyes almost closed. "Then I heard somebody calling my name, and turned around, and it was Larek, and he was standing next to an even cuter guy my age - _that_ would be Zan. Larek waved me over and said how glad he was that I'd come to the party, he'd been looking for me to extend an invitation, but hadn't been able to find me. And then he just said that he thought I'd like to meet his friend, that we might hit it off."

"Just like that?" Max said. "Larek's got some nerve, if he 'introduced' you to the Crown Prince without actually mentioning his name."

"Yeah, but - well, it was probably the best way to handle it," Ava admitted. "So soon, the two of us are sitting together on a small couch in a quiet corner. He had a glass of Rynec and I asked for Geelee milk. And Zan was really very shy and even stammered a little, but he told me how he and Larek had been in the water that afternoon, and he saw me up on the rock, and mentioned to Larek that he thought I was lovely. And Larek had told him that he recognized me, and that he could go back up and talk to me, but Zan had told him not to because he'd feel silly and not know what to say."

"I do know how he feels," Max agreed. "And then?"

"Well, and then I started to ramble on about the refugees," Ava replied.

#

"So, well, umm..." Rose said, as she stepped across the bedroom door and considered the sleeping chamber that up until this evening she had been sharing with the Doctor - and Kyle, who was standing up against the hallway door in his sleeping underthings. "I guess there's some questions that we'll have to settle about the sleeping arrangements."

"Yeah, I guess so," Kyle agreed. At the Doctor and Rose's request, they'd been settled into a room that had the equivalent of twin beds, each one placed against a different wall. "Okay, I'm going to put this out there. I'm in favor of pushing the beds together. I'm not going to push you about - about making love or anything, as much as I'd like to do that with you, it still is a bit early. But - but we slept in each other's arms last night, for a few hours at least, and yes, I liked it. Even if that's all we do, I'd still love to go to bed next to you, and sleep all night."

"Oh, sure," Rose giggled. "Isn't that the oldest trick in the book? 'Yeah, of course darling, I won't try any funny stuff, just let me get into bed.'"

Kyle shot her an amazed look. "Are English guys actually such huge creeps? I thought American football players were bad, but I can't think of many who'd slide over the line into date-rape quite that casually."

"Umm - no, not really," Rose said. "Sorry, I was trying to make a joke. Guess it got lost in translation." She sighed. "Next objection, somewhat more serious - isn't that sort of thing... more bother than it's worth, for guys?" She shifted restlessly. "I know it sometimes can be for me."

Kyle chuckled at the line that he couldn't resist delivering. "Depends on just how much the girl is worth," he whispered to Rose, stepping close to her and indulging in a sweet kiss. "But seriously, up to you, whatever."

Rose giggled. "Push away, young Mister Valenti. I guess we'll take things as they come when we're under the covers together."

He had to think about that for a moment, and then decided that he liked it. "Okay, just a moment." The Antarian beds weren't solidly fastened to the floor or the walls, (or for that matter, the ceiling,) but they were solidly constructed, with heavy metal legs, and Kyle was panting and somewhat sweaty when he had finally gotten one pushed over next to the other. "Just a moment, umm." He considered going back into the bathroom for a towel, then remembered that they didn't have any, and Antarian sponges didn't seem to be good for this kind of thing. So he poked into his small suitcase and came up with an already-used t-shirt that wouldn't be too badly affected by a little further soiling.

"Don't wipe yourself too dry," Rose told him, rolling over onto the far side of the newly arranged 'double bed.' "I do like my guys a little on the sweaty side."

"Alright," Kyle said, rolling his eyes as he crossed over to the bed and sat down. Rose just stared at him silently, so after a moment he brought up his legs and tucked the light blanket over most of his body.

"Good enough," Rose laughed, rolling back so that her lithe body was resting on top of him. "Now here it comes."

And she kissed him passionately like there was no tomorrow, her hands starting to wander over his skin.

#

Isabel woke up to the sound of spirited conversation outside on the balcony, and groaned. "What the hell time is it?" she muttered to herself.

"The local time is zero zero five eight," a synthesized, artifical voice said from somewhere in the bedroom.

Alex stirred immediately. "I didn't know that we had anything in here that would do that!"

"Neither did I," Isabel grumbled. "Maybe the request has to be phrased in a very particular way." Alex chuckled in reply. "More to the point, that's very early for people to be making so much noise, isn't it?"

"Maybe," Alex allowed. "But it's a big day - maybe somebody wanted to get an early start." She shot him a nasty look, but it didn't last long because her eyes hadn't really gotten used to being open yet. "Do you want me to help you out with that super-earplug routine you use sometimes?"

"Umm... no, whatever. Let's face this stupid day," she said, swinging her feet down from the bed. "That is, if you're up for it too."

"Sure, okay," Alex said, getting up from his own side of the bed. "Umm, honey, you might want to, well..."

She didn't realize what he was getting at until she'd already gotten to the balcony door - and then it occured to her just how brief the clothes that she'd been using to sleep in during the warm night were, and how she didn't really want to be seen by anybody else but Alex like that, really. Fortunately it was easy enough to step away from the door for a moment, and bring a dressing gown flying to her hand with a casual exercise of her powers. As an afterthought, she also provided a robe for Alex to use.

The crowd that had gathered outside on the balcony turned out to consist of Jim Valenti, Amy DeLuca, Lord Rath, Prince Zan, and Larek - so far. "Oh, good morning Isabel," Amy said with a wave. "How are you doing?"

"I... I'd have been doing better if somebody had given me peace and quiet to sleep later," she blurted out before really thinking about it.

"Oh - whoops," Jim muttered, as Amy blushed and looked around at the other doors, as if expecting a whole crowd of annoyed teenagers, (and one twenty-something English girl,) to come charging out complaining about their lost beauty sleep.

"I apologize," Zan said, nudging Rath with an elbow. "That was probably our fault, forgetting to restrain our high spirits out of consideration to you and such. Most walls in the palace are very good at insulating sound, but though these balcony doors have many things to recommend them, such insulation is not on their list of good qualities."

"Yeah, really sorry," Rath mumbled.

"It's alright," Alex said. "Looks like you guys have got quite a good spread going. Could you pass over some of those Hallaf cakes, and do you have plum syrup without the hot herbs in it?"

"What the heck?" Rath asked as he passed the flat cakes over. "How can you possibly have it without hot herbs?"

"Here, Alex," Jim said, passing over a small glass of syrup. "Lord Rath, I suppose you could say that's a quirk of the Earthling palate. Individual tolerances differe, but most of us don't particularly like the enormously spicy stuff like those of Antarian extraction."

"Hmm, interesting," Zan said, looking intently over at Isabel, who nearly dropped one of the cakes she was transferring over to a clean plate for herself.

"Can you, umm, can you let me use that syrup when you're done, sweetie?" she asked Alex.

"Well - are you sure?" Alex replied. "Come on, you don't need to be nervous about liking the hot stuff just because it's come up in conversation. We've all seen how much 'insanity casserole' you can put away."

"Yeah, I - umm, I guess that you're right," Isabel said, reaching out for the gravy boat-like dish of spiced syrup and pouring it over her cakes.

"So, what's the plan for the two of you?" Alex asked Zan and Rath, wondering if this would get the conversation back onto safer ground.

"Well, I've got a clear pass to stay entirely out of the way while the girls are setting up for the party," Zan said with a big smile. "And my parents, and the servants, and so on. Rath wants to stick close to me, but I think I may have to find a way to go get him to take his lumps and do his part."

"Yeah, good point, Your Highness," Jim put in. "Come on, Rath - we can all go together, and keep each other company telling dirty jokes or something as we carry around heavy furniture." Rath looked unimpressed by that possibility, but shrugged.

Breakfast continued on a fairly relaxed basis, and though Alex wondered several times if there was going to be a huge influx from the other bedrooms, only a very bedheaded Maria finally emerged as he pushed away his plate and sipped from a glass of delicately flavored water. "Michael's still out like a light," she complained. "Anybody know what he and Max were up to for all hours of the night?"

"Umm - they mentioned something about going to talk to - well, the good Lady Ava," Isabel said, with an apologetic shrug in Prince Zan's direction. "Along with the Doctor. Not entirely sure what they had to say to her." That last part wasn't really the entire truth, but it was certainly close enough that Isabel could say it without giving anything away. "Sit down, have just about anything you want, and don't worry about Michael for now. He'll have less breakfast to choose from, and it won't be hot, and that serves him right."

"No, he'll make it hotter than it needs to be just to spite us," Maria laughed, pouring a glass of something deliciously blue and sitting down with it. Before drinking, she let out an enormous yawn that seemed to just go on and on.

"Well," Amy said, looking around the table. "So, any idea what I can expect from the naming-day party of a Crown Prince of Antar?"

"Let's see," Rath said after a moment. "The celebration will last around four or five hours, I guess, and it's broken up into different sub-parties in sequence, each of which will take place in a different section of the palace. I'm not sure of the exact sequence, but there'll be an elaborate dinner of course, and a musical performance, some sort of games, and stories being told about when the Named Boy was much younger."

"Ooh, will we get to see baby pictures?" Isabel asked.

"Huh?" Zan asked, a distressed look coming over him as his face started to get very pale.

"Well, I don't know," Rath said, looking over at his friend. "Is that a tradition from Earth?"

"Sort of - not something that always happens at a birthday party, but often paired with stories from when someone was young," Amy put in.

"I'll have to ask Her Majesty if she has any hologram storage units around," Rath said with a smile. "Once I'm sent away to help with the party setup.

Zan groaned softly to himself.

#

Somehow when Kyle woke up next to Rose this time, he expected that they'd mysteriously have ended up in the banquet hall or somewhere else equally embarassing, but the two single beds were still next to each other in Rose's room, where he'd struggled and sweated to get them there. "Good morning, my darling dear," he whispered in the vicinity of the sweep of golden hair that covered the right side of Rose Tyler's head.

Rose turned towards him and something in her look was so bittersweet that somehow it staggered Kyle. "Hello and good morning, very precious Kyle," she breathed, and actually lifted a hand as if to brush a tear away from the corner of her eye, though Kyle couldn't see any moisture actually building up there.

"Hey, hey - is something wrong?" he asked her.

This time, there was no mistaking the sadness in her eyes. "Well, I suppose that you could say something isn't right." She took a deep breath that seemed to be full of false cheer. "But we needn't worry ourselves about that just now, do we? It seems to be a great day for a party - from what I can tell." Rose chuckled to herself very softly. "Do you want to go out onto the balcony and see what's available for breakfast?"

"Hmm." Kyle could hear somebody talking outside their sliding door, and he crept out of the bed and over to listen for voices. In a few moments he was by Rose's side, as she stirred from the bed and rummaged through her clothes. "Nah, let's go the other way - after washing up quickly and dressing."

"Well, alright I suppose," Rose said, a puzzled expression on her face that managed to knock out the melancholy at least. "Mind if I ask why?"

"Not sure if I'm up for keeping company with His Highness so early in the day. We'll have to face enough of him at the party."

Rose shrugged, then got up and headed for the bathroom. "You're not a big fan of Prince Zan?"

"No, I can't say that I am," Kyle admitted. "Which is kind of funny when you think about it for long enough. I didn't get along with Max either, for a long time, and I'm not sure that was all because of the Liz drama."

"Right," Rose said, and disappeared into the bathroom. Kyle thought for a moment about joining her in the fountain shower, but quite a few signals seemed to be indicating that he'd be pushing his luck there.

Soon both of them were clean, and decently, if casually, dressed for the day. Kyle wondered as they proceeded into the Palace hallway if Zan or anybody else out on the balcony had heard the water running in their bathroom, and expected them to be coming outside. Well, Zan could have all the expectations he liked.

Down the nearest ramp and along another corridor, and for a little while they didn't see anybody else. And then, a party of three Antarians emerged out of a cross-passage - a tall male servant, the Princess Vilandra, and a girl in her younger teens who Kyle had seen around the palace a few times, and guessed to be another princess, one of Zan and Vilandra's sisters. "Good morning, both of you," Vilandra said brightly, her voice a little too loud for the distance between them. "You're drafted."

"Drafted?" Kyle repeated, a sinking feeling in his middle. "To help with the party setup, you mean?"

"We'll serve, won't we, Kyle?" Rose said, putting a hand on his shoulder. "But you'll need to feed us first, that's only humane."

"Didn't you eat enough upstairs on your balcony?" the younger princess said. "I saw all the food that Rath was making sure the kitchen staff were delivering up there."

"That may be true, but we haven't even been out on the balcony this morning," Kyle told her. "Got up, washed and dressed, and came downstairs first thing."

"Alright, alright, come this way," Vilandra said, and then cocked her head. "No, on second thought, don't follow me, I was on my way to check on the outdoor construction crew, wasn't I?" The servant nodded gravely. "Well, Amerit, see our guests to the downstairs hall for their breakfast, and let Lady Ava know that she can put them to work once they've had something to eat." And with that, Princess Vilandra continued on in the direction that Kyle and Rose had come from.

"Quite a difference from the welcome we got from her our first day, isn't it?" Kyle whispered to Rose, who shrugged. The servant meanwhile, led the way, and Vilandra's little sister, after looking around for a moment, decided that she could please herself and fell in step next to the visitors.

"You're the ones who went all psycho because of the curse that was laid on my sister, aren't you?" she asked Kyle and Rose impertinently.

"I prefer to call it going 'psychic', Kyle told her with a laugh. "And I'm not sure it qualifies as a curse, but yes, that's us. Kyle Valenti, of Roswell, and this is Rose Tyler from London. And I know that you're one of the princesses of the Royal family of Liaret, but I'm sorry, I didn't remember your name."

The little princess raised one eyebrow. "That's new, I suppose. My name is Arynda Liaret."

"I notice a running theme in the names of the women of your family," Rose noticed.

"Yeah, that's Corvanni thing that Mom's keeping alive in her family," Arynda said glibly.

"Corvanni?" Kyle repeated. "What's that?"

"Oh, it's a large island in the Southern Opposite ocean," Arynda explained. "Where she was born, and lived all her life until she was older than Vilandra is. They're a bit old-fashioned and traditional over there, religious even. But she's proud of her Corvanni heritage, and Dad doesn't let anybody make fun of them, even if she's not around."

"Interesting," Rose said. "There's so much we still don't know about Antar, and it looks like we'll be leaving so soon. Have you been able to travel much, Arynda?"

"Not as much as I'd like," the girl said. "We spend most of our time in the Royal Castle just outside Capital City, or the secured apartments in the city center. But let's see - I've visited Brok Bay, and North Tilles, and I've been to Corvann for a short visit with Mom's family. And we've been to Jjefen, and visited Rahlicx, and Dimaras, and Taliernar, and Vrelayan."

"That doesn't sound like it's too bad," Kyle said, once the young princess had paused for long enough that it seemed like she had run out of alien place names.

"No, it isn't," Arynda admitted. "But there's so many other beautiful places to go, even just in the Antar sector - there's the Saphiran cluster, and the underground concourses of Kaalto, and even Breoll - I don't really like the Breollyn that I've met so far, but I'd like to see the planet that they came from."

"Everybody seems to pick on the Breollyn," Rose noticed.

"Yeah, well, they pick on everybody else even more," Arynda explained. "As long as they think they're in a position of strength." And with that, she led them around a corner into a familiar corridor, and then they were passing through into the large feast hall. "So, whatcha want for your breakfast? You'd better get something you can eat up quick, because there's lots to do."

Rose looked at Kyle, and then asked, "Can we at least see a menu or something?"


	22. Chapter 22

Max sighed, rolled over a bit and held Liz closer, and then it occured to him that something was different. A smell was what tipped him off, as surprising as that was - a very faint smell that was nevertheless completely unlike the usual scent of their room at the Brok Bay palace. Groaning, he opened his eyes, which didn't recognize much additional light from that action. "Okay, this is at least a little b... bit odd," he muttered, having to clear his throat in the middle of the statement not because of nervousness but because some sort of a tiny mote had lodged itself temporarily in his throat.

He recognized the elegant king-sized bed, its various covers, and Liz herself of course. That was about the extent of the familiar. The near side of the bed appeared to be crammed up against a highly slanted wall, to the extent that if Max lifted one arm straight up, his fingers would probably run into the surface, which met another slanted wall to form a peaked roof. The only light source appeared to be a curtained window halfway across the room, and the entire volume of the room, except for what was immediately above the bed, appeared to have junk in it. Not crammed full of solid garbage or anything, or he wouldn't have been able to see the window at all - the items that filled up the room were scattered fairly densely though, like a forest of discarded furniture, storage boxes, and several kinds of things that he couldn't immediately identify.

"Ehh, I don't care about odd," Liz mumbled, her eyes still closed. "Just hold me tight and let's go back to sleep."

"Hmm... as tempting as that is, love of my soul, I think that we'll have to deal with the odd sooner or later, and this may be the necessary time," Max breathed close to Liz's ear, and carefully crawled over her to examine something in slightly closer detail. An odd assortment of straight spikes appeared to be the legs of a couch, similar in style to some that he had noticed in the downstairs parlour two nights ago, as the couch rested upside down on what appeared to be a trunk or low dresser.

"You're starting to piss me off, Evans," Liz muttered, smacking him, not too hard but with feeling, for leaving her behind. But when she opened her eyes and looked around, even Liz started to grow concerned and curious about their predicament. "Okay, so we ended up in the attic," she started.

Max opened his mouth to correct Liz, or at least warn her about coming to conclusions, but she kept talking over that. "It's an _attic_," she insisted. "From the house next door to the furthest galaxy, I can recognize one when I'm in it, for all that we don't actually have one in the Crashdown building. I would have thought that you'd know them well enough, after that - umm, memorable afternoon in your attic Labor Day weekend."

"Okay, point taken," Max said, smiling at the memory of the incident to which Liz had referred. "The furniture and other items in storage, the peaked roof, the almost non-existent lighting and clutter, the dust..." Somehow just mentioning that last feature made him sneeze. "Yeah, this certainly does seem like an attic, though I do challenge your implication that you could identify one no matter what kind of planet you were on. Antarians are close enough to humans, after all - who knows what kinds of life forms there might be out there, and what their attics look and smell like?"

"Well, let's not bother with that particular conversational bypass, then, 'kay?" Liz asked him. "We're in the attic, along with our bed, and the clutter, as you so aptly described it, is thick enough around us that there's no way the bed could have been moved in here without rearranging it. Which suggests that we've been deliberately surrounded by the worst clutter that could possibly be arranged - and what does that make you think of?"

"A prank," Max answered, since it really was the obvious explanation. "The Royal Four would be the obvious suspects, to my mind."

"All four of them?" Liz replied, scooching over to a spot where she could set up and not bash her head in. "The guys, yes, I could see them being involved in a sophomoric stunt like this - probably with Larek joining in."

"Hey, don't count the girls out from sophomoric stunts, just because you wouldn't take part in one," Max shot back. "Maybe not the Princess Vilandra, come to think of it - but I do have a sneaking suspicion that Ava could have been ringleading the Attic Bed caper. And no, I don't have any firm proof about that or anything, just..."

"Just what were you chatting with her about, so late last night?" Liz said, lifting an eyebrow.

"Nothing - well, nothing inappropriate. Let's see..." Max started counting off on his fingers. "The perils of time travelling, coughwood trees, Antar's four moons, her family, the dangers of falling in love with the wrong Antarian..."

"Ehh?" Liz interjected. "You sure that wasn't inappropriate?"

"Um, I don't think so, not in the context. She was talking about her mother and the father of her half-brother. I won't go into all the details, but it looks like with Antarian connections, if a love affair goes badly enough wrong, you need professional help just to break up and make it stick."

"Hmm... yeah, I can see how that would be traumatic," Liz admitted uncertainly. "Okay, was that it?"

"She told her side of the story of how she and Zan first met her, and Michael told a few stories about getting to know Maria, nothing that could incriminate us or anything." Max shrugged. "More than anything else that's suspicious, there was an intent look in her eyes when she wished us goodnight and 'safe travels tomorrow' - which would be later today. I know it's a bit unfair, but I remember that look in Tess' eyes, though I don't think it's quite as bad news with Ava."

"Hmm..." Liz considered this. "Well, any of them could have decided that if they were going to play a little joke on their visitors before we left, last night would be their best chance." She looked around. "You don't have a watch or anything, of course. None of the things we left on the dresser or bedside tables seems to have been brought with us."

"No, but I do have the notion that it's getting late in the morning," Max said. "Any of them could have connected with both of us and reinforced our sleep response, at least I think that's within their ability level. To make sure that neither of us woke up while the bed was being moved around."

"Okay, that does make some sense," Liz agreed. "And making sure that we'd sleep late, so that we'd have to hurry to get out in time for the party, and would be finding our way back to the room while everybody else in the Palace was already up, would have made the joke better." She tugged slightly at the red tank top that she'd gone to bed in. "And depriving us of any other clothes to use. I don't see anything around that's made of fabric, and even your powers can't do much with this material."

Max chuckled. "If you can't see anything made of fabric, then you're not looking 'close' enough," he teased her.

"Huh?" Liz looked down, and then got it. "Oh, right. Okay, that'll work. Next, figuring out how much moving and rearranging we'll need to do to clear a decent path to the door."

"The window's closer," Max pointed out.

"Yeah, but I'm not going out the window," Liz insisted.

"Okay, **your Majesty.**" Liz stuck her tongue out in reply to that line, and then Max couldn't resist coming close and kissing her.

The blankets turned out to be almost useless for clothing purposes, with some kind of metal weave inside that was comfortable and hard to notice when they were in their proper shapes, but insisting on sticking out at odd angles, (and poking skin as often as not,) and eventually they both gave up on it. The sheets were somewhat more useful, but also on the thin side, so with a bit of effort Max made one of them into knee-length shorts for Liz, and disintegrated most of the other, trying to turn it into a t-shirt for himself. And that was that.

Making their way through the attic was also harder than it originally seemed. Max had been determined to do whatever was needed to clear a path, 'and let the pieces fall where they may, literally,' but Liz pointed out that the contents of the attic were unlikely to be as junky as they seemed, especially considering how easily the Antarians could recycle garbage, with their powers if not through technological gadgets. Somebody, probably Sanren and Alinda, must have stored this stuff away for sentimental reasons, and just because their children and guests were probably behind this prank, didn't mean that it was right to break their precious memories.

So the two of them proceeded more carefully, first moving items from around the bed onto it, and then using that cleared volume as space that they could proceed into. "Any idea where this room would be in the Palace?" Liz asked doubtfully. "I know I saw a lot of - is minarrettes at all the right word? Little peaked roofs, up on the third floor or even higher."

"I don't think that's the right word for this architectural feature," Max said. "But you're right that there are a lot of peaks like this, all up high. Poking out of round towers, many of them. I don't think it's possible to guess where we ended up, though it does seem possible that we're fairly close to our old room, since it can't have been that easy to move us through the Palace late at night. On the other hand, maybe they were motivated enough to put us further away, to make for better laughs." He sighed. "We won't know until we get to that door." Max jerked as his fingers touched something on a blue metal table, and he nearly stumbled. "Whoa - flash city."

"Really, what was it about?" Liz asked, and her mouth drew into a frown as Max hesitated. "Oh, no, you didn't let another ghost out of the bottle, did you? I really don't want to get posessed by an alternate personality, on top of everything else we have to deal with today."

Max laughed. "No, not that kind of flash - at least, I really don't think so. Vilandra and Isabel didn't even notice anything when they let the ghost out, did they?" Liz shook her head. "It - umm, it was a bunch of little Antarian children playing a complicated ball game in an open field." He reached out for something from the table again and held it up for her - a squeezable rubber ball, or the Antarian equivalent. Actually, Liz noticed that the shape was an icosahedron - one of those three-dimensional geometric figures, with twenty triangular sides, that dungeons and dragons players used to make their most elaborately complicated dice. The points and edges between triangles had been rounded off to make sure that nobody could get poked.

"Cool," Liz said. "Do you think that little Zan and Vilandra might have been among the players?"

"Umm - I suppose they could have been," Max said. "Don't really know how to recognize them."

"Then we could take the 'ball' and ask Alinda or Sanren about it," Liz suggested.

"Hmm... alright, but you carry it," Max said, tossing it to her. Liz wondered if she would get a flash as soon as she touched it, but didn't. However, she took a moment to concentrate harder, willing the impressions to come, and got a momentary vision of celebration as one little kid scored a goal of some kind.

There were several other items that they came upon on their trip across the attic that seemed to be significant, either for flashes or otherwise. A metallic rod about three feet long would mentally 'speak' untranslated Antarian into their minds whenever either Max or Liz touched it. An effort of will could get the thing to switch passages apparently, but without knowing the language neither of them could get the hang of it more than that. Liz wondered if the thing was an Antarian literature textbook or possibly just a somewhat compact library. She tucked it under one arm as they continued.

Finally Max flung the attic door open with a great sense of achievement and accomplishment,,carrying a photo album that seemed disappointingly human and old-fashioned for an Antarian artifact - It was flat and nearly two feet square, recognizably a codex-style book, with thick, stiff covers, and a kind of metalring binding - not a spiral, but perhaps twenty separate rings serving the same purpose. Each of the interior pages showed six or nine pictures, not attached or inserted separately, but developed onto the album page itself.

Liz followed, her arms and hands also full with the ball, the library rod, a short cloak that they'd both gotten flashes from, several pendant necklaces that had just been lying around, but Max thought might have been somebody's pledge tokens once upon a time, and a silver ring with Antarian symbols inscribed on it.

The corridor that they found themselves in was sharply curved, but when Max headed to the right, they soon found themselves only at at one unpromising locked door. Going back and trying the other way took them to a narrow stairway, which the bed simply could not have been taken up, but Liz was happy enough to lead the way down and not ask more questions. At the bottom of the flight, an Antarian woman, maybe thirtyish if her looks were judged by human standards, watched them emerge with a bemused expression on her face.

"Good... morning?" Liz tried, sounding slightly uncertain. "Umm - you're related to Ava, right? I guess I didn't realize you were still here."

"I'm not exactly, dear," the lady said. "But I stayed close to the neighborhood, since my niece invited me to Zan's party. If you don't mind my saying, those are interesting - costumes to go salvaging through the storerooms in."

"It wasn't exactly our plan," Max said. "Somebody thought it would be clever to strand us up there in the middle of the night and dig our way out - and I think somebody will have to figure ou a way to get a king-sized bed back down. Hopefully the same somebody."

"I see," the aunt replied with a pensive nod. "Sounds like nothing more than youthful high spirits." She looked upwards. "Perhaps literally."

"You wouldn't happen to know, um, where our guest rooms are, would you, and how to get there?" Liz said, with a slightly awkward smile. "And, I'm sorry, but I can't quite remember your name. Sounds like Shella, but that's not it."

"Very close, actually. Shelda Dervensee." Shelda smiled at both of them.

"Thank you, Shelda," Max said. "And, if it helps, I think I remember someone, perhaps Vilandra, mentioning that we were off the Derclan corridor."

"Yes, I think that does give me a notion of where to lead you," Shelda said. "There's one thing that's still confusing me, though."

"Yeah, ask away then," Liz told her.

"If you were stranded in the attic because of a prank - then why did you bother to bring so much stuff out?"

Max and Liz both laughed. "That's a good question, and I'm not sure if there's one answer or not," Liz said as Shelda led the way off. "Some of it we thought might be put to good use for the party, and some of it we just came across and wanted to ask about, if anybody knew what they had been for, what the story behind them was."

"Ahh, I see. Are you both pack moles at heart?"

"Can't say that I know what that means," Max told her.

"Somebody who enjoys digging through the junk that somebody else has packed away, exploring it, trying to figure out what it all means."

Max and Liz exchanged a look. "Maybe I am, a bit," Liz said. "Max just puts u with my inquisitiveness, at least when it's turned towards something as mundane as garbage."

They continued to make small talk as Shelda led them through the corridors of the palace, and ran into Rose and one of the younger princesses briefly, as they rushed off on some errand. The princess, Arynda, took a brief look at Max and Liz's attic finds and suggested that they should be shown to Ava or Vilandra. "You should be able to find them if you hang around in the downstairs feasting hall for a little while," Rose added. "And you should - we need more assistants."

"Give us a chance to get changed properly first," Max called as they rushed off. "This is going to be one of those busy busy days, at least until the party proper starts, isn't it Shelda?" he complained. "I thought I approved of how generally self-sufficient Brok Bay was without a huge retinue of staff, but this is the kind of occasion when I'd like having a few more servants around."

"Yeah, well," Shelda said, and shrugged. "I've managed to avoid getting drafted for anything too frantic so far, but you might not be so lucky."

Shelda found the way to their room without any further incident. Once there, Max and Liz showered off together in the fountain, got dressed properly for the day, and confirmed with a timepiece that it was indeed quite late in the Antarian morning. There was conversation out on the balcony, and it turned out that Zan was out there along with Rath, Larek, Isabel, and Alex, all of them cheerfully avoiding work and swapping tall tales. Max was tempted to spend time with Zan in order to join in, but instead he herded Liz down into the feasting hall, which was in the process of being transformed as one of the party venues.

"Have you seen Rath or Larek?" was the first thing that Princess Vilandra asked when she was Max and Liz.

"Umm, yeah," Liz admitted. "Just four minutes ago, up on our balcony, talking with Zan."

"Just the three of them there?" the eldest Princess asked her cannily.

"No, umm, Isabel and Alex were there too," Max mumbled, and Liz looked at him as if she thought that he'd betrayed his sister and her best friend. Well, maybe he had, in a very small way.

"Florbniss," Vilandra muttered angrily. "This may be my brother's big day, but he does _not_ get to pre-empt so many people away from party duty. That's it, I'm drafting the lot of them." She grabbed a kind of message pad and started to inscribe a message on each of four pages, by waving her hand over the pad over and over again. "One of you, go back and serve these. They'll be required to attend - even your sister, Max, and his boyfriend. That is, if they have any respect for Antarian tradition at all."

Max had his doubts about the authentic pedigree of this tradition, but didn't want to bring that question up with the spirited Princess. More to the point, he really didn't want to go up there and serve these 'summons', and apparently Liz could sense or guess her doubts. "Okay, I'll be happy to serve," she said, holding her hand out for the little pieces of paper.

Soon Liz was hurrying back to the upstairs, and Vilandra offered Max the chance to use his powers to help putting up the elaborate decorations in the hall while he waited for her to come back. Eventually Isabel showed up, made immediate tracks for Ava, talked with her for a minute or so, waved up to Max, and headed off on some errand of her own, probably one that would keep her well away from Vilandra. Both of them seemed to share the same 'party Nazi' trait, Max reflected, not that he'd call it that while he was here, and he wondered how Isabel would deal with the notion that getting this particular celebration 'just right' was already in stubborn hands, and she wouldn't be able to have everything her way.

Maybe a minute later, Alex, Rath, and Larek showed up, considerably more resigned about the job. They checked in with Vilandra, and Rath started to pitch in with the decorations too, and Larek headed off towards the kitchen entrance. Alex walked over towards Max, which Vilandra complained about, until Alex managed to make her understand that he'd just be a minute.

"What's up?" Max said, climbing back down to ground level as Alex reached the base of the elaborate Antarian ladder.

"Liz wanted me to give you this," Alex said, handing back his own 'summons' slip. On the reverse side from Vilandra's imprint, there was a message in blue ballpoint, and Max recognized his girlfriend's precise handwriting.

"Max, I've done my duty by Vilandra, and gotten her several helpers. But Zan deserves somebody to keep him company while he waits for the party to start, and nobody served me to compel my service. We'll see you in about an hour and a half."

Max sighed and handed the slip back to Alex. "Did you know what she was doing?" he asked.

"I did after I got to the ramp and started reading the note," Alex said with a quiet chuckle. "She said that she'd be along in a minute, but I guess I had my doubts even when I left her." He shrugged. "But so what? Zan does deserve someone to talk to - and I think that Liz might have some things that she wanted to ask him. If you could go seek out Ava, isn't she entitled to play turnabout with your opposite number?"

Max thought about that, sighed, and shrugged. "I wonder what's on her mind... but I guess I'll find that out when the 'time' is right. In the meantime - do you think this is all straight enough to meet with Vilandra's approval?"

"Hmm..." Alex backed off, casting a critical eye on the streamers and gauzy semicircular drapes hanging from near the ceiling. "I dunno, if she's as picky as your sister... we might need to do some work on that side," he said, waving to his right."

"Lift up, or lower down?"

"Umm - lift the semicircles and lower the streamers."

"Really?" Max looked back and forth in dismay - he'd been sure that at least he'd gotten the gap between the two kinds of decorations reasonably consistent. "Okay, give me a hand with this contraption," he said, gesturing to the unusual ladder.

#

"I feel like I have so many questions," Liz said to Zan, as they walked through the flower gardens at the edge of the Palace grounds and onto the beach - the one in the opposite direction from where the TARDIS used to be parked. "Do you feel like you'll ever be ready to be King of a planet?"

"Sometimes I'm sure that I will - given enough time to study, and practice," Zan said, sighing. "And sometimes it amazes me that anybody, even a man I admire and respect enormously like my father, could ever live up to such responsibilities. At least the issue shouldn't be put to the test for - oh, for decades and more. Father is in the peak of health, according to his doctors."

"You can never tell by that, I think," Liz warned. "Death doesn't always follow a slow and predictable course."

"Well, I suppose that anybody could meet with an accident of misadventure, but the number of security we have around no matter where we are should mitigate that, I think."

"I don't know about that," Liz admitted. "Bodyguards and personal security could make accidental death much less likely, I'll agree with that, but the guards I've seen around here aren't nearly intrusive or omnipresent enough to make that much of an impact, it seems to me. And then, there's the reasons why a King would **need** security around, which could be strong enough that there would never ever be enough. Do you know of any enemies that he might have who could engineer an assasination plot?"

Zan stopped short, breathing hard. "Nobody... nobody ever says that word around us. It's as if they think it's unlucky, that to mention the concept is to tempt fate or something like that. But yes, I'm aware of a few... the republican hardliners who take it as a personal insult that our world is a monarchy, and one General who Mother is certain has dreams of establishing a Junta government, in the civil unrest that would follow a royal bloodbath."

"They do sound like bad enemies to have," Liz admitted. She was tempted to mention Kivar Andraikus' name, but thought that it might be tempting fate of the temporal kind, so soon after she'd asked about assasination. What if Zan put the pieces together a bit too quickly. "If your father died tomorrow, and you were left in charge - any ideas what you'd have to do first?"

"A few," Zan admitted. "Meet with his advisors to get briefed on the details of government affairs that I haven't had to immerse myself in on a daily basis, find some way to show the Senate that I mean to be a strong ruler without alienating them." He took a deep breath. "And ask Ava to marry me, as soon as the arrangements can be made."

"Wow," Liz said, nearly tripping over a sand dune. "But - well, when Isabel told me about - about the big surprise that they're planning for today, she said that neither of you thought that you were ready to get married."

"No, really, we're not, personally," Zan said. "But for a King to marry at a time of his own choosing is an expensive luxury. So is marrying a Queen of his own choosing, though I do not intend to sell out on that choice. But if, as we were saying, hypothetically, Father was suddenly assasinated, the entire Royal tradition would be endangered, and for me to marry would be a way of sending a number of good signals, that there would be a continuation of the dynasty, legitimate heirs to follow after me. 'The Royal Family is still here, and we're not going anywhere,' that sort of thing." He looked out at the bay. "And the common people like Ava and I together. They've done opinion polls on that. We've got a solid approval rating in the high seventies."

"So it would be a marriage of convenience, driven by reasons of dynasty and public relations?" Liz asked. "I mean, you've said that you have honest feelings for Ava, I'm not suggesting that you don't. But if you wouldn't have married her if not for the welfare of your house, and the chance to be the best King you can be to your people..."

"Maybe that's a better foundation for a marriage than purely personal feelings," Zan mused out loud. "Duty, and honor, and a hope for the future. Can't that be stronger than a love between a man and a woman?"

"I... I wouldn't know," Liz said. "But I think it might be hard to like a woman for the rest of your life, if you married her for duty, honor, and a hope for the future."

"Maybe you're right," Zan said, and took a deep breath. "So, what else are you curious about, in our world, Liz Parker?"

"How do you know I have any other questions?" she asked.

"Oh - something in your face, I guess. Come on, ask away."

Liz thought. "Well, this is a long shot, but - there must be so many ways to use Antarian powers, some of which could be dangerous or harmful. Are there any people who have gotten into trouble, simply for having Antarian secrets so horrible that they could never be used."

"Hah - admit it, you were fishing!" Zan exclaimed, pointing a finger at her.

"Fishing?" Liz tried to act as innocent as she could, but wasn't sure how well she pulled it off. "Now, what could I have been fishing for?"

"Someone must have told you a bit about Kivar, and you wanted to make me bring him up in conversation first," Zan said.

Liz sighed. This much was true enough - Alex had found an interesting reference to Kivar in the historical database material from Kaalto, and Liz thought it would be a good way to nudge the conversation along. "So who's Kivar?"

"Do you really want to play dumb with me?" Zan demanded, and Liz just shrugged. "Okay, I'll play along, for now. Kivar Andraikus is somebody who's spent most of his life studying applications of telepathy and similar implications of 'the power.' He grew up the only son of a reasonably wealthy family, mine owners who invested in social connection software, that sort of thing. And he also belongs to a philosophical school, whose conclusions... I find disturbing, and so do most of my family and a lot of people with more traditional values. They talk a lot about how pain isn't an absolute negative or pleasure an absolute positive, that protecting the weak can have worse consequences on society in the long-term, and about how Antarian society could proceed further if it were run more like the survival of the fittest."

"Ooh, yeah, that's a bit sinister," Liz muttered.

"What do the tenants of a belief have to do with favoring one hand," Zan asked, curious.

Liz stared at him, then laughed out loud for delight. "Ah-ha! Sorry, I've just been waiting days for the TARDIS translation field to truly slip up on something like this. The English word I used, 'sinister', did originally mean somebody who favored writing or fighting with their left hand, which is uncommon among humans." Liz waved her own left hand to demonstrate. "But now it has other meanings that are more common - let's see, of bad omen, suggestive of an evil presence."

"Bad omens, and evil presences," Zan repeated. "Reminds me of the past few days."

Liz fought to keep her face straight and not give anything away - she hadn't wanted to draw any link between those events and Kivar in Zan's mind. Once again, she wasn't sure how well she managed. "Yeah, I guess so. But - well, so did Kivar do anything with telepathy that seems especially ominous?"

"Yes," Zan agreed. "He originated the first power technique that's been outlawed by decree of the Crown in ninety years. A way of ripping memories out of another person's mind." He shook his head. "It's nasty stuff, but Kivar's friends are powerful - some of them are even on the Senate. The Senate voted against the sanction on mind-tearing, but Sanren could pass it anyway, with at least one third of them on his side. And Kivar's been an outspoken critic of his ever since."

Liz stayed silent, figuring that she had enough about Kivar, and that it wouldn't seem too unusual to let the conversation lapse after a revelation like that. After a moment, she thought of something else. "What do you think about your sister and your best friend - you know, being together?"

"Vilandra's been seeing Larek behind Rath's back?" Zan joked, and Liz rolled her eyes. "And I think that I'm serious about Larek being my best friend, though Rath is definitely also a close companion. But - well, they're young to be choosing who they want to be with for the rest of their lives, but I can see how much they love each other, and most of the time I feel as if what Ava and I have doesn't measure up. But then, maybe they feel the same way about us - I can't really tell."

"Have you ever actually had a one-on-one talk with Rath about relationships, and asked him what you think of you and Ava as a couple?" Liz asked. "Or your sister, for that matter."

"Well - no, I guess not as such," Zan said, blinking. "I'm never sure how to talk to anybody about this kind of stuff - even Ava herself. Do you talk with your friends about that kind of thing?"

"Well, sure," Liz admitted. "Maria and I were trading secrets about Max and Michael - since not too long after we'd both gotten a kiss. But maybe that's a girl thing, I don't know - Alex has been my friend for years and years, and I didn't really ever get to know Isabel until after I started spending time with Max, but somehow it's easier to draw her out about their secrets than Alex, just because of that 'shared feminine mystique' thing, or whatever." She looked around, sighed, then kicked off her feet in the sand and wandered into the water. "Do you think they'll be able to find us here, when everything's ready?"

"Maybe not," Zan said. "But I have a notion when things might be 'starting to get close to time,' and we can wander somewhere more approachable before then." He sighed. "So, is it my turn to ask a question?"

"Sure, but I'm not making any guarantees," Liz sing-songed back.

"Well, how did you find out about aliens?"

Liz considered. She wasn't sure if Zan would have heard the bit about Max and the others being an alien hybrid, but surely it couldn't hurt much to be honest about that part, and the shooting was too good a story not to tell, by now. "Well, I was working in my parent's restaurant, getting people their food, when two of Maria's customers started to have an argument, and one of them pulls out a gun, a weapon..."

#

Michael felt an odd impulse to yell 'surprise' as Zan and Liz stepped through the open doorway and into the name day party feasting hall, even though probably nothing about the party was a surprise to him - well, actually, Michael wasn't so sure about that. The fact that he was getting a party today was certainly not a surprise, but some of the arrangements might have been things that he hadn't found out about him beforehand. He hadn't been involved in any of the arrangements, but nobody had said that was to keep from spoiling a surprise. Michael had gotten the impression that more than anything else that it was just seen as unfair to make the guest of honor work on his own festivities, which was an attitude that he could respect. (Then again, Michael tended to prefer celebrations that nobody had to put too much work into.)

Everybody clapped or cheered softly as Max took the seat at the right hand of his father at the table, and Michael remembered one thing about the party that had been definitely mentioned as a surprise - whatever it was that Ava was supposed to be doing to publicly show how much they cared about each other, in a way that was non-traditional enough that nobody would be obliged to betroth marriage as a response, or what-the-hell ever.

He wondered vaguely what that thing would be - it would be a surprise to him too, though certainly all of the Roswellian girls had been involved in the planning, and possibly Maria had asked Rose for her opinion, too. At that moment, though, he was distracted by Maria tugging on his hand. Nearly everybody else had taken their places at the table, and Michael sat down in one of the empty spots that had another vacancy next to it, so that Maria could be next to him. That spot also had the distinct advantage of being at least seven places away from Lord Rath.

Dinner was very hot and spicy, mixed with sweetness, to the point that even Maria, who had gotten used to this sort of thing in the years that she'd known him, was obviously having trouble, and Michael did what he could to suck some of the extreme tastes out of her dish with his powers, without doing anything that might go too badly wrong. He gathered that the food being served was all of Prince Zan's favorites, so it didn't seem to be too polite or respectful to be requesting substitutions. When Michael looked around the table, he noticed that Kyle didn't seem to be eating much, but Alex, who Michael generally thought of as having a much lower tolerance for hot peppers than anyone else in the group, was chowing down with a will. What the? Had Isabel anticipated this, and arranged for him to get blander fare as a special order? And left Maria to fend for herself as best she could?

The dinner continued on for a long time, with about five or six courses, not all of which were equally hot, at least. (Though for himself, Michael liked the spiciest ones best too.) The last was a sweet with a consistency somewhere between soft-serve ice cream and soft taffy - a cool, sugary mess that left a stringy trail behind when you spooned a biteful out of your bowl, in flavors that reminded Michael of lemon, pistachio, maple, and honey.

"Alright, everybody," Alinda said, once the bowls and spoons had been cleaned away, (and the paper tablecloth was splotched with little lines of spilled sweet.) "If we can all make it to our feet after that, and follow Zan and Ava to the Grand Parlour, we'll proceed to embarass both of them, but especially him, with stories and holos, and even some flat pictures that Max and Liz managed to find in one of the attics."

"What were they doing in the attic?" said Kyle, who must have not heard that story yet.

"Larek, I'm going to kill you for thinking of that," Zan threatened, and several people laughed nervously, even the ones who didn't really know what was so funny.

"Actually, if you don't mind my taking the lead, your Majesties," Liz said once everybody had made it to the parlour, "I'd like to start by prompting you for stories, if you've got any, about some of the other things that Max and I took with us out of the attic. We can leave the pictures for later, and if there's a story but it's not about Zan, you don't have to answer, but... well, I had to ask about this." She held up the foam-rubbery 'die-ball' so that nearly everybody gathered into the room could see it, and tossed it towards Queen Alinda's lap.

"That's was **my** Gamma shot!" Arynda exclaimed in a mix of delight and outrage. "Who put it up in the attic?"

"It can't have been yours to start with," Tolecnal shot back.

"Well, no," Arynda admitted, somewhat deflated. "Zan and Vilandra were both given it for Blessinday, way back when you were a baby in Mom's arms and I was too young to even start playing. But Vilandra said that she was too old, and that I should have it, and she even asked Zan and he said 'whatever, I don't mind.' I loved playing, I loved having my own shot, and I cried for a night when it just vanished and we couldn't figure out where it went to."

"Maybe somebody got a bit annoyed at just how much you loved playing," Larek muttered, a bit too loudly, because Arynda immediately whirled around and stared daggers at him.

"I think that, though all of that is true, Arynda, there's a part of the story that you might have forgotten," Sanren said, in a low but well-projected voice, and nearly everyone turned immediately, including his middle daughter. "This gamma shot already resurfaced once before, after that night that you cried over losing it, and you knew that it had been found, because I told you."

"Umm..." Arynda considered, then spoke up in a very small voice. "Maybe. What did I say about it?"

"Are you sure you want me to repeat what I remember you saying, in front of everybody?" Sanren asked, and Arynda nodded silently. "You said that you didn't care any more, that gamma shot was a stupid game, and that you couldn't believe you'd gotten so worked up about it," he explained. "I think possibly you were just feeling a little foolish for having gotten so worked up about losing it, and had gotten so 'sour apples' that even getting it back couldn't make you feel excited about gamma shot any more. I tried putting it in your room or with the other sport equipment a few times, and always it ended up in a waste receptacle." He sighed. "So I handed it to one of the staff and asked them to put it away somewhere safe."

"Oh." Arynda said, considering that. "Well, maybe I'm ready to get back into the game now."

Alinda tossed the 'shot' to her daughter. "What can I possibly add to that story?" she asked Liz.

"Wait a second, there's still something that seems to be missing," Max put in. "How did it get misplaced in the first place?"

"Somehow it ended up in my office, it seems," Sanren explained, "and was found by some security corporal who had never even seen a game of Gamma shot. He had the 'unexpected object' whisked away for tests to figure out if it was an explosive, or spying device, or if it was pumping out mind-affecting waves or something of the sort?"

"Without asking anybody?" Zan asked.

"Well, he asked somebody else on the security detail if he'd ever seen the shot in my office, which the other guard had to say that he hadn't. Of course, the other guard realized what it was, and even figured out how it had likely ended up there, but didn't volunteer that information."

"All right," Liz said. "That sounds like the rest of the story. Let's see." She checked her pockets. "I doubt that this is a story about Zan at all, but I was wondering if you knew who these pendants are," she said next, holding them out.

"Hmm... let's see, I don't recognize any of them immediately, they were in the same attic?" Alinda said, leaning close to look. "We might have a minor mystery on our hands. My darling, do you have anything to add?"

"The blue stone might have been my uncle's, from his engagement to - oh, the Lady of Wistona, I don't remember her name. The one who caught a Xianthan virus and passed away before the healers could help her, and so they never had a wedding day," Sanren said. "I don't recongize the other two either, though. Hmm." He looked over at Liz. "It would be a shame for you to leave before we find out the truth."

"Don't worry about me," Liz inisted. "This is Zan's day."

So next she held up the poetry rod, which got Vilandra talking about the literature tutor they both had when they were nine years old.


	23. Chapter 23

"So there the two of them were, perching on high stools over the counter, the entire dining room a mess," Alinda continued, her finger still marking the relevant picture from the Antarian 'photo album.' "And Zan turns to me, with a big smile on his face, and says, 'Mommy, I turned the cake batter bowl into a Vol-ca-no! It was the coolest thing ever. Can we mix up another batch of batter?" She shook her head. "I still remember how carefully he pronounced the word volcano. He'd written a paper for his tutor a few weeks before about earthshakes, and spelled volcano wrong, and gotten drilled on that and many other earth science terms."

"So, what did you tell them, about the batter?" Kyle asked. Everybody laughed.

"I - well, I don't remember. Probably I said that we'd have to leave it for another time, after the room could be cleaned up." Alinda sighed.

"Well, as much as I've appreciated hearing all of these stories for the hundred and fifth time," Vilandra started, "we do have to be moving on fairly soon, so can we wrap it up?"

"Certainly," Sanren answered, "but I think that Max and Liz brought one more fascinating find down from the attic, didn't they? Unless I'm losing track."

"Oh, right," Max said, taking the little black cloak that he'd been keeping on his lap. He showed it off for everybody. "Was this Zan's, by any chance, when he was little?"

"No, that one was mine, until I grew out of it," Tolecnal put in. "I think that Zan had one when he was little, too, but his was grey."

"Yes, umm... I'm not sure if I can come up with a good story about either cloak," Alinda said. "They both wore them nearly everywhere when they were little..."

"I've got one, actually," Zan volunteered. "This is back when we were both at the Royal Academy - my last term there, actually, and Tollie's first. I'd been... um, working on some homework, seriously..." there was a ripple of awkward laughter, "and I happened to look out my dormitory window, which faced the quad, and on the other side of the courtyard terrace, there was a tiny little blob of black that I thought I recognized." He smiled over at his little brother, who mustered a half-hearted grin to send back.

"I rushed down the stairs and over fairly quickly, but it didn't look as if he had moved - sitting there and hugging his knees under the fabric, head bent downward. If this cloak had a hood on it, I wouldn't have been able to see anything but the black." Rath laughed alone this time, and broke it off when he realized that nobody else thought anything was particularly funny.

"So I sat down next to him," Zan continued, "and he didn't look up at first, but I just kept talking, saying not much of anything important, cracking jokes, and eventually he picked his head up, and then I asked him what was wrong."

"I was homesick," Tolecnal volunteered at this point in the story. "And some of the other kids were teasing me, calling me the King's baby, and acting like I thought I was better than all of them. And I wasn't, at least I didn't mean to, but I didn't really know how to act like I was just one of them, either."

"Been through that," Arynda put in.

"Yeah, I know how that is," Vilandra told her brother.

"I may not be royalty, but I do remember being a young man apart, looked at differently because I was 'higher born,'" Rath said, very sincerely. "When I went through boot camp at fourteen, and I was the only noble son in my grunt class."

"Yeah," Zan said softly. Ava shrugged a bit awkwardly, as if she wasn't sure if she could entirely relate to this. "I didn't really have any answers, except to talk about it, telling Tolecnal that I went through that too and eventually it got better, that I missed home a bit too, and that he was my little brother and I'd always love him."

"Alright, that works," Vilandra said. "Is there a post-script?"

"Two days later, I made my first non-brother friend at the Academy," Tolecnal declared, and everybody laughed at that one.

"Okay, Vilandra, what's next on the schedule?" Zan asked her.

"Game time, hide and seek," Vilandra declared. "You're the first searcher, dear brother, and we all have five minutes to take to our hiding holes. Ava has arranged a few surprises to make the game exciting - a scattering field that will make sure you can't trace any of us by the sense of our minds, for one thing, and sound effects to make it a bit harder to overhear someone hiding. When you find someone, you have to bring them back here, where good Mister Banforth will note the score, and the found person becomes another searcher, who can help you look for the next."

"So, any searcher can bring someone that they've found to this room, and convert them?" Isabel asked. "Zan himself doesn't have to be here each time?"

"No, any searcher can bring the found here, but Banforth will keep an eye on them until Zan checks in," Rath said. "Then he'll convert them."

"Interesting," Max said, catching Liz's eye. "Nowhere off limits on the Palace grounds?"

"Outside is off-limits," Vilandra lectured. "Also Father's private study. Occupied bedrooms are not strictly verboten, but will be locked down, and damaging Palace property to get through will be considered an aggravated foul." She brought out a little crystal. "Your five minutes begins - now!"

Max reached out for Liz's arm as they were both carried along in the crowd of people hurrying to get out of the Grand Parlour and find a good hiding place in the time that they had.

"Back up to the attics?" Max suggested.

"After all the fuss that was made out of the stuff we found up there last time?" Liz suggested. "No, I think that's the first time Zan will be looking - and I hope that nobody else thinks of hiding there." She considered. "Vilandra said that the bedrooms would be locked down - does that mean that our own keys for our room won't work?"

"I'm not sure - probably, otherwise anybody with a room of their own has an enormous advantage over the seekers there," Max said. "In any event, all of our rooms aren't too secure, because of the balcony doors. They don't have decent locks - a little privacy switch, yes, but Rath showed me how they can be bypassed easily without damaging the door. Do you have any other good ideas?"

"Hmm." Liz considered all that she had seen of the palace over the days since arriving at Brok Bay, and shook her head. Then she noticed that Max was trying to keep himself from grinning. "No, but I think that you do. Spill?"

"Come on," he said instead, taking her hand in his. "If Zan expects us to go up to the attics, perhaps we should try the opposite."

"Oh, right," Liz said, seeing it. Max had been shown around the basements, while they were searching for clues to the posessions, and Liz had gone with Zan and the Doctor out to the Foursquare stones. Had he seen something that would work particularly well as a hiding place? "Let's go."

#

"What is this place, Jim?" Amy asked as he led her into a small chamber, with shiny white rock walls and simple but practical furniture. Jim hit a button, and a solid steel door started to slide down behind them. "And why wasn't it locked down before we got here?"

Jim turned and gave her a cheeky grin. "It's the palace panic room," he told her with a grin. "Not included in the ordinary lockdown protocol, because that would defeat its primary purpose. The door doesn't seal until it's operated from inside."

"A panic room?" Am repeated, looking around the small space with a new appreciation. "Meant for the members of the Royal Family, I would assume, since the entire staff couldn't really fit in here."

"I suppose so, yes," Jim agreed, taking a seat in a wooden chair so well crafted that he'd have been pleased to have it in his own artisan's portfolio. Hmm, perhaps he should try to make a sketch of it before they left.

"And now that you've engaged the door, it can't be opened again until we open it?" Amy said. Jim shot her a look. "Yes, that's part of the function of a panic room too, I suppose. Doesn't it seem at all presumptuous to preempt the place for a game of hide and seek? Not to mention unfair to Prince Zan?"

"Well, I thought it was an innovative hiding place," Jim shot back. "Just because few other people would have thought of it. What, do you think I should have left it for one of the Liarets?"

"That's not the point," Amy insisted.

"As far as unfairness... well, making him figure out a way to open the door to 'find' us would be taking the thing a bit far, I admit," Jim allowed, reaching out for Amy's fingers as she paced past - she slipped her hand away, but took a seat nearby, looking intently at his face. "There's an intercom that someone could use to call in just outside. If young Zan calls in and asks if anybody's hiding in here, then it's a fair cop, and we'll come out to get turned to the dark side. Does that make sense to you?"

"Then it might not be very long, if he's half as clever as you are," Amy pointed out.

"I'm not so sure about that. Now that the door is closed, it might not be obvious to anybody else that this room wasn't part of the lock-down. Zan will have to figure that out himself. And if it's one of the horde of helpers who tries first, we pretend that we're not here."

"Isn't there an alarm or something that security can use to tell that someone closed the door from inside?" Amy said.

"I... I don't know," Jim admitted. "If you don't want to take your chances in here with me, I'll let you out, but if you'll stay, I'd just as soon change the subject, and ask you what you think of the Antarians now that you've been here for nearly a day."

"Hmm... quite a change," Amy admitted, and sighed, considering her impressions. "The younger ones are charming, and yes - they do remind me a lot of their opposite numbers that we know much better, though there are a lot of differences, as anyone might have expected considering that they've grown up in a very different environment, a different time and on a different planet. And the really young Royals..." She shook her head, unable to come up with the words.

"You wish you could entice Tolecnal into following you home to Earth, don't you?" Jim teased her, and Amy shook her head, blushing. "Well, probably best that you keep your maternal instincts in check. By our time, he's probably married with grandchildren of his own."

"Wait a second, didn't Kivar get the entire Liaret family?" Amy demanded suddenly, her voice dropping smoothly to a whisper. "What's the big deal about Max and Tess' daughter, then?"

"I'm not entirely sure, and I'm only guessing that there are grandkids, though from what I understand, Max did find out that there was a royal brother who escaped at the time of Kivar's takeover, so that would have to be him," Jim replied, his voice just as low.

"I suppose that's good," Amy muttered. She considered it for another moment, and then shrugged. "By the way, I think I've made up my mind that now I'm mixed up in this crazy trip at all, for the good of Michael and the Evans kids, I might as well go through with the rest, and come along to see Tess."

"I'm glad," Jim said softly. "For a few reasons. First, stopping off at Earth in our present to drop you off might introduce some other kind of temporal complication, though I don't immediately see how. And more importantly, I think that you'll be a help when we get to Nunyes. Tess always liked and respected you, and you might be able to help defuse any part of the situation that gets touchy."

"If wiping out my memory is how she shows her respect, then I'm not sure if it means much," Amy grumped. "But in a strange way I liked her too, horrible problem child that she showed herself to be and all. Not entirely sure I can blame her for acting out, with that horrible creature as her only parental role model for ten years. I'll do what I can, including being open to forgiving her for what she's done."

Jim quirked up an eyebrow. "Being open? I admit that I'm curious - it's been months since Tess left Earth. If what she did isn't entirely unforgivable, then why haven't you done it already?"

Amy stared coolly back at Jim for a long time, and slowly he got the impression that she thought he was slightly foolish for even asking. Finally she muttered, "God may be infinite in forgiveness, but as much as I try to grow in his image, I'm not, yet. And my own capacity to forgive, I have to say, is not just a question of deeds, but circumstances - like remorse. I suppose I've forgiven Tess for her trespasses against me, considering the situation, and that to some extent she was doing it for the other kids as well as herself. But what she put Alex through - and Liz, and Max... not that, not yet. Not until I find out how she feels about it now."

"Okay, that makes sense," Jim said, smiling. "Even matches with some of what I didn't realize I was feeling myself, until you said it. So... umm..."

He fell suddenly silent with a crackle of noise on the intercom speaker, and then a clear voice. "Is anybody hiding inside the panic room? That's really hardly fair."

Amy opened her mouth, but Jim put a finger over his lips, and she clued in. Lord Rath continued to badger the speaker for a moment longer, and then the room fell silent.

#

"Okay, it's getting hard to keep track," Ava said to Alex. "Who are we missing now?"

"Max and Liz," Isabel immediately called from the other end of the first-level corridor. "At least, I've not heard anything about them being taken. And what about the Lady Vilandra?"

"I chased Her Highness out down the secret passageway between her dressing room and the guest bedroom myself," Ava said with a laugh. "She's with Rath now, combing through the attic for well-hidden boltholes for the fourth time. How about Sir Valenti?"

"Zan got 'em himself," Alex reported. "They were inside the panic room, after all. Made up their mind that they'd surrender to the birthday boy himself, but play dead if anybody else asked if they were inside."

"Well, that's fairer than they might have been, I suppose," Ava agreed after a moment. "Anybody else?"

"Larek was unaccounted for the last time I heard, too," Alex said. "I think that might be it. Any good ideas where to look?"

"Maybe try going through the Telcit hall," Ava suggested. "I've been over it once already, but Larek does have a few tricks up his sleeve yet. And then maybe we should check in back at home base again."

"Sure," Isabel muttered, following the alien girl.

They'd gone around the large hall, full of furniture that had been gathered from a dozen worlds, and more strange nicknacks up on the wall than any restaurant Isabel and Alex had ever seen back on Earth, when suddenly Alex did a double take and turned to look at a spot between a low buffet and a plain wooden armchair. As Isabel turned to follow him, Alex walked up and reached out - and suddenly he was shaking the shoulder of a Larek who hadn't seemed to be there a moment ago. "Okay, okay, frebznle. Fair get."

"Where was he?" Ava called, running over as soon as she recognized Larek's voice.

"Sitting right in plain sight," Larek muttered, his demeanour caught between bragging and regret. "Used a low-level cloaking field to make anybody want to not notice me there - except Alex, apparently."

"That's impressive," Ava said to Alex. "I didn't see through that cloaking field - and I'm fairly good with mental trickery via the Power, if I do say so myself. How did you manage, Alex?"

"It could have been just..." Isabel started defensively, but Alex began speaking half a second later than his girlfriend.

"You can't fool me with that kind of trick - not anymore."

Ava and Larek considered this for a moment and thought their separate thoughts. Then Alex winced visibly, and Isabel wrapped an arm around his back comfortably.

"Is it a bad headache, honey?"

"Kinda, yeah. That's still never easy for me."

"If you need to go and lie down or something, you just go right ahead, Alex," Ava told him. "I'll take Larek down to home base, for his best friend to Convert to our cause."

"Yeah, umm, thanks, I think I may do that," Alex agreed.

"I'll come with you," Isabel muttered.

"No, come on," Alex protested. "I'm not that weak or invalid - and I don't even need to go anywhere much." To prove the point, he sat down on a sofa long enough for him to stretch out on, and Isabel went down with him, since she was still holding him. "If Max is still missing, nobody else knows him well enough to find him but you - not if Liz is missing with him." Alex chuckled at that thought, remembering another time that Max and Liz had been hiding, and Isabel had asked for his help in trying to find them.

"Fine, if you're sure, but do me one favor first," Isabel said, kissing the side of Alex's face and then letting him go so that she could stand up.

"Umm, what is that? I'm not really in trim to catch butterflies for you or anything like that, honey."

"Just lie down right there so we know if this thing is going to murder your back."

"Oh, dammit, I hadn't even thought of that," Alex said, opening his eyes wide and looking down at the couch almost as if he expected it to literally bite him.

"It should be fine," Ava assured him. "This sort of furniture is designed more for Antarian rear ends than our spines, actually. I'm not sure that one of us would lie down on a tri-seater like that, just because you can't get the support rods into it without making it hell to sit upon."

"Well, that's a little reassuring," Isabel said. "If it's customized to sit on, Alex might still have a few minor issues." But Alex seemed happy enough to lay down on his back and close his eyes, so Isabel grinned herself. "Okay, I guess I'm with you until the Royal Converter takes care of this bud, and then we'll see about Max and Liz."

"Sure, okay," Ava said. "Have a good rest, Alex. If anybody else bothers you, just let them know that you've already been found and that you need a bit of recuperation time."

"And what if it's Max and Liz who bother him?" Larek wondered. "Can he officially 'find' them without opening his eyes and getting up?"

Nobody bothered to answer that question, and soon Isabel, Ava, and Larek were back in the Grand Parlour where Vilandra had announced the game, and a few minutes later Zan walked in, grinning a big grin when he spotted his old friend. "So the girls got you, too?" he asked, clapping Larek on the shoulder. "You're one of us now, you realize."

"Yes, and it wasn't the female persuasion who spotted me," Larek insisted. "Young Alex Whitman, though the stress of seeing through my mental cloak appears to have laid him low for a short stretch of time. What news?"

"Well, we are officially down to just Max Evans and Liz Parker," Zan reported.

"And I think I know where to look for them," Vilandra added, following her brother into the room. Isabel made as if to bolt away, but Ava held her hand reassuringly,and Isabel stayed put where she was with an Ice Queen smile. "Everybody down to the Brandy cellar!"

"Alright," Larek exclaimed. "They're not going to escape us all afternoon."

"Why didn't somebody try down there before?" Isabel asked, following the rest of the posse.

"I did do a sweep, early on," Zan admitted. "But..."

"But he didn't remember that Rath and I showed Max and Maria around down there," Princess Vilandra finished. "Back when we were still trying to figure out what was happening with the hauntings. Neither did we, until just a few minutes ago. And I showed them some of the really good hiding spots inside the basements, that Zan probably forgot about and didn't realize that anybody else would know - well, except maybe family."

"Whatever," Ava said, as they got to the head of the stairs. "Let's do this."

It was rather an anticlimax when Zan crawled on his stomach up a narrow tunnel in the cellar wall, and eventually pulled himself back out. "Okay, they're found," he reported. "But they'll need a few minutes, I imagine."

"A few minutes?" Ava asked blandly. In the total silence of the basements, you could just about make out the sound of two people panting and softly crying out around the mouth of the tunnel. "Oh, I... I guess I get it now."

#

"So, what's the next big party activity?" Maria asked, once they were all gathered in a large hall near the back of the palace, where they hadn't spent much time.

After some trading of glances, Vilandra and Alinda gestured that Lord Rath had the foor to explain. "Well, it's come to our attention that you knew something about the swim costumes and beach traditions of summer court. Of course, it's too early in the year for summer court, and much too cold to go swimming with much comfort out in the Bay - but we wanted you visitors to have a little taste of the fun. So, the outdoor pool has been warmed up, and we want to see all of you in your bathing gear, chop-chop."

After a second of stunned silence, a babble of responses emerged from the Roswellian contingent - a few pained groans, and also some chuckles. "I'd actually forgotten all about this part, and all of the running around looking for suits at the last minute back on Earth," Max admitted in a whisper to Liz.

"Well, there were plenty of other things going on to distract us, just as soon as we landed," Liz agreed.

"Wait a second, what's all of this about?" Amy complained in a loud voice. "Nobody told me that I'd have to show up to a pool party. I certainly didn't have a chance to pack a suit or towel..."

"It's alright," Jim assured her. "This is for the young ones. You can just sit out on a deck chair in the clothes that you're wearing now, if you want to." Rath opened his mouth to contradict him, and the ex-lawman managed to send over a glare fierce enough to prevent anything from being spoken out loud.

But after a moment, Maria broke the silence. "Come on, Mom - you can join the rest of us girls in a suit. It's not that big a deal, you're still in really good shape."

"For a woman of my age?" Amy quipped wryly, but from the look on her face, it was clear that she was wavering.

"Well, I'll be going into the pool, Miz DeLuca," Queen Alinda told her with a small smile. "From one 'woman of a certain age' to another, I understand how you feel, but it's all for fun."

"And... actually, I brought your black one-piece," Maria confessed. "The one you like, that doesn't cover too much and makes you look half a size skinnier. I was going to wear it myself, but I'm sure that somebody who lives here will be able to loan me something."

"Okay, everybody who's not lobbying Miz DeLuca, go and get changed," Vilandra called. "We're losing the daylight here." This brought a bit of laughter, as it was obviously still relatively early in the afternoon, but most of the group did disperse, with Ava leading the visitors back to their rooms so that they could go through their luggage.

#

The pool courtyard was at least as beautiful and grand as any part of the palace that they'd seen yet, and the pool itself was of a good size - a little less long than the facilities at West Roswell High, but spacious enough for the two dozen-odd party guests. And the water was heated to nearly the same point as a hot bath or a jacuzzi, so that nearly everybody found itn more comfortable to get in than sit out on the deck chairs in the slightly cool air.

Rath and Larek tried to start a team game involving throwing around a rubber pyramid that would float when it hit the water, but nobody was really interested in more sports after the hide and seek. A few people started doing racing laps, while others simply floated or tread water in circles and talked.

#

"I think that I've lost track of what we've done so far," Kyle admitted, once he was changed back into warmer clothes. Unsatisfied with the moisture dripping down onto his forehead, he grabbed up a watermelon-sized sponge and started rubbing it all over his hair. "Where to next?"

"Out to the front lawn overlooking the beach, and where we first met you," Ava told him, laughing. "This is the last stage of the party, by the way - the ultimate surprise finish."

"Okay," Rose said, perking up with the infectious excitement. "Umm, which way is the front door, then."

When Larek led the way out the fairly small portal onto the stretch of freshly mown grass between the palace and the beach, it would have been impossible to miss the evidence of Ava's ultimate surprise. A stage had been erected on the edge of the green, with speakers of an unfamiliar design upon it, and several Antarians holding their musical instruments.

"Royal Command Bandstand," Michael muttered appreciatively. "Nice one, Ava. Did you give her the idea, honey?" That last part was aimed at Maria.

"Excuse me, for the record, I was the one who suggested bringing Droguer to play the party," Vilandra snapped haughtily.

"You suggested them," Rath agreed. "I was the first one to say that we should get a great band, in the first place. The plans that you Earthling girls hatched with Ava just piggybacked off our hard work."

"And I can't thank you enough for making all of this possible, guys," Ava told them both. "Happy Naming Day, Zan Liaret."

"Thanks," he said, his eyes focused on the bandstand. "Is the playlist set alerady?"

"Well, we put something together," Vilandra admitted, "but I think that they might be willing to take a few special requests for the guest of honor."

"Happy day, Your Highness," the central member of the musical group called out with full amplification once they'd gotten within a stone's throw of the stage. "Is there anything we can do for you, other than getting started?"

"It's a pleasure to be here, your Majesties, Your Highnesses," somebody else, (holding a skinny implement taller than he was,) added.

Zan shot a sidelong look at Ava, and then called out "Safe in your heart!"

The spokesman paled slightly and hesitated. "We're, umm... we'll be playing that one, your highness, but we're not quite ready for it yet. The plan was to start out with 'Tougher than a Cyclone...' Is that alright?"

Zan hesitated only a moment. "Yeah, sure, sorry."

"No need to apologize, Prince Zan," the keyboardist chimed in. "We're happy to take requests if we can, just... trust us when we have to demur, okay?"

"Of course." There was a brief moment of preparation, and then Droguer exploded with an earthquake of music that Kyle suspected wasn't in any key according to western musical notation on Earth, and yet somehow it was unmistakably a powerful rock-dance number too. He wondered for a moment if the TARDIS translated music at all, or if some things were just universal - between humans and Antarians, at least.

Rose grabbed his arm as the lead singer started to belt out the lyrics in a strong tenor voice: "It's not like much when it starts on a sunny day / The wind blowing hard across the plain / Then a cloud appears and your friend might say / It's starting to look like more than rain..."

As that first song played through, Kyle noticed that Ava and Rath were busy, trying to pull some kind of a flat sheet of material out from under the stage towards the rest of the audience. When it became clear that the surface was more than the two of them could immediately handle, Max, Michael, and Alex were immediately sent in to assist by their girlfriends. Kyle shot Rose a look, and she shrugged. The five of them seemed to be doing well enough with the portable floor, so Kyle stayed where they were, splitting his attention between the performer and the preparation. Once she was satisfied with the overall positioning, Ava stepped up onto the stiff sheet and hurried back and forth, doing something to prop it up where she wasn't satisfied with the flatness of the thing.

It was only as 'Cyclone' was winding up to an end that Kyle suddenly realized the point of the exercise - the thing was an outdoor dance floor.

When the music died down, Ava Dervensee stood before the stage, and everybody's attention focused on her. "I... well, I didn't figure that you'd enjoy the music much more while you were still waiting for our song, Zan, so I figure we should have it now. Zan Liaret, will you dance with me?"

Zan looked all around him, bemused, and then grinned at her. "Of course, my dear. This is your surprise?"

"Well, yeah," she admitted. "I figured that something simple and heartfelt would do."

"That it certainly does," Zan reassured her, stepping up onto the dance floor and crossing over to her.

"And I'd like to ask that the floor be left to the two of them, for this song," the lead singer asked, again with way too much amplification. "There'll be other dance numbers."

"Yeah, we know," Isabel shouted back at him.

As the softer and more tender music began, and Zan and Ava stepped back and forth across the floor in each other's arms, Kyle thought about what his female friends had certainly helped to arrange. Probably the custom of the bride and groom's first wedding dance wasn't a part of Antarian tradition, or they wouldn't have recreated it so closely on this occasion. But given that it was an unfamiliar ritual - the symbolism, the significance was clear, but not so overt as to force them into a public commitment that neither of them felt ready for yet.

Reminded by that thought, Kyle looked around over his shoulder, trying to be nonchalant about it, (though of course trying wasn't nonchalant by definition.) Alinda and Sanren were watching with their arms around each other, smiling fondly at their son and his girlfriend, pleased at what they saw but not eager for anything in particular.

Ava's aunt Shelda, on the other hand, seemed to be eager, and Kyle's stomach lurched slightly when he realized that nobody else had noticed the way that she was staring hungrily at the dancing couple. And whatever Shelda wanted Ava to be a Princess, or Queen for, there was no way that Kyle could do anything about it, because that would be interfering in the past.

"And no matter what the cruel world may do to us,

Though circumstance may keep us long apart.

I know every choice I make I will be true to us,

And my love will have a home, safe in your heart."

Quickly the song came to an end, and everybody clapped enthusiastically when Zan and Ava turned around to bask gleefully in their big moment. Shelda wasn't the loudest applauder, or the quietest, but Kyle couldn't seem to stop stealing glances at her, or dwelling on what he'd seen even as the band started another ballad. He was still pre-occupied when Rose pulled him out on the floor for an open dance.

#

"What is it?" Rose asked Kyle, pulling him away from the crowd as the next-to-last number on the set list began.

"What's what?"

"Don't even try playing dumb with me, kid," she growled. "There's something that's suddenly eating you, and you're going to tell me what it is."

"Okay, it's just... Ava's aunt," Kyle suddenly blurted out. "Nothing too important about it, really. Just a look on her face when the two of them were dancing, like she just couldn't wait for Ava and Zan to get married. I don't like it, but she'll get her wish soon enough, and we can't change that even if we want to. You understand the dangers of messing around with the past."

"Yes, but..." Rose shook her head and leaned closer. "Try to think clearly about it, Kyle. The whole reason that we've come here was to learn about the Royal Four in their own time, before going to the future of the Antar sector and confronting Tess. I know that Max was more or less satisfied with the deep background he's absorbed, but up until that moment when you looked over at Shelda, nobody had really learned anything surprising."

"So... so you think this is important, for going to find Tess and Max taking his daughter back?" Kyle repeated, feeling like he couldn't quite concentrate with the music so near by.

"Well... considering how hung-up Tess was on Ava and Zan marriage, how could it be anything but important?" Rose countered. "That one of Ava's family might be pressuring her towards the wedding?"

"We don't know that Shelda's ever done anything to manipulate Ava's choices," Kyle pointed out.

"No, but we'd better find out, hadn't we? If she ever has, and if she's likely to in the future."

And that was the tricky point. "But - but we can't stay here. Everything's arranged, that we'll be leaving essentially as soon as the concert is over!"

"Plans can change," Rose said. "It'll be tricky, I'll admit as much. Especially if we want to keep Shelda from getting suspicious of us in return. But somehow we have to learn more, before the TARDIS leaves this time and place. And that means that the others have to know - especially Max and Liz."

Kyle stared back at the stage and wondered just how to tell them.


	24. Chapter 24

Max, Liz, and the Doctor had already gotten back to the TARDIS by the time Rose caught up with them. She pulled Kyle in along with her, slammed the door shut, and locked it behind her. "Hey, what's going on?" Liz asked. "Half our party is still outside there. More than half, right?" She started silently counting up on her fingers.

"They'll be fine, we're not going anywhere," Rose announced. "But we need to figure out our excuse as to why not."

"Our excuse?" Max repeated. "Well, can you give us the reason why first?"

"Of course, that's why we're all in here together," Rose said, and pointed at Kyle. "He spotted something during Zan and Ava's solo dance together that all of the rest of us missed, a very little something. Just an expression, but I think that it's important enough that we can't move on until we learn more."

"An expression?" Liz and the Doctor chorused, and shot sidelong looks at each other. Kyle snickered.

"What kind of an expression?" the Doctor asked.

"And who was wearing it?" Liz put in.

There was a moment's pause, and Rose gestured to Kyle that he should speak up. "Sorry, I thought that if you'd gotten this far yourself... never mind." He sighed. "It was Ava's Aunt Shelda, and she looked... I'm not quite sure how to put it. Umm, she seemed very pleased, and eager, to see the two of them together."

There was a moment's pause as the three people evaluated this. "You're right, Rose," Liz decided first. "That wasn't what I was expecting to learn about when we came here, but it's something that we should investigate more closely, so we'll have to find a pretext to delay our departure."

"Right," Max agreed, settling down onto a convenient flat surface the right height to sit on. "Anything that can help us understand more about Tess' motives, before I have it out with her. But what could we say that would believably explain a delay, after we'd made such a big deal about having to leave as soon as Zan's party was done?"

"Well, let's think about that," Rose suggested, nodding. "These Antarians don't understand much about the TARDIS, right? Time Lords are legends to them. Do you suppose we could say that there was just some problem with the engine, and it'll take twenty-four hours to fix?"

"That would kind of step on my legendary reputation," the Doctor put in. "But frankly I don't mind."

Everybody traded looks. "Probably the simplest thing that we could come up with," Max agreed. "It's beyond their level of technology, so it would be reasonable for you to keep anybody from coming in here to poke around with it. And we can get it 'fixed' anytime we need to."

"Good enough," the Doctor said. "We'd better go and let His Majesty know as soon as possible that their unexpected guests need to stay over one more night. Who's with me?"

Rose, Max, and Liz nodded. Kyle shrugged and stepped aside. "I'd rather not be there, if that's all right. Good luck and all."

"Okay, sweetie." Rose kissed him on the cheek, then stepped back to the door and opened it up. "Sorry, everybody, but it looks like we've got some technical difficulties to sort out."

"What the hell?" Michael asked.

"One more night here, Michael," Liz told him. "Don't worry, we won't be late getting anywhere."

"I don't think this TARDIS is really all it's cracked up to be," Michael complained, as four figures emerged out of the door and proceeded past him towards the nearest entrance into the Palace proper. After a moment, Michael and Maria, Isabel and Alex followed the delegation, while Jim Valenti held the TARDIS door open before they it could swing closed on its own and proceeded inside, followed by Amy.

#

"Okay, come on, that was the fourth place we've tried at random, I'm not going to go through this again," Liz said, after Max and Rose poked their head into the formal dining room looking for King Sanren. "Hello, Zavnia?"

"Yes, Miz Parker?" the elderly serving woman said, turning around and bobbing her head at the distinguished guest who had called her name.

"I'm so sorry to bother you, but we need to speak to His Majesty - Both of their Majesties, actually, and can't seem to find them. Would you be able to figure out..." Zavnia handed Max her high armful of clean folded fabrics and whipped a small gizmo out from a pocket in her uniform. "Okay, I'll take that as a 'yes.'"

"Sanren is currently... in the Royal sleeping chamber," Zavnia reported after a moment. "Do you want me to send him a message, asking if you could meet somewhere a little more official?"

Max shot a look over the armful towards the Doctor. "Umm, what would the protocol be regarding bothering him in his bedroom?" Max asked after a moment. "Is that something that just isn't done, or would really piss him off, or..."

"Nah, he sees guests in there if it's convenient for him," Zavnia told them. "Can't hurt to ask. After such a big day, he might want to keep whatever-it-is informal instead of dressing up and going someplace else - if that's alright with your lordships."

"Fine by me," the Doctor said. "Thank you very much for your help, Zavnia."

"All part of the service, your Lordship," Zavnia said, taking the fabrics back from Max and then realizing that she still had her gizmo in one hand. Awkwardly she tucked it into the bottom of the pile.

"Just one thing," Max said. "Where's the Royal sleeping chamber? I don't think we've had it pointed out to us before this."

"Give me one minute, and I'll take you there," she promised.

"Yes, hello?" Sanren called from behind his door a few seconds after the knock had been sounded. "Mister Doctor, is that you?"

"Yes it is, your Majesty," the Doctor replied, and after a moment, Sanren opened the door, wearing a very comfortable looking striped shirt and bright purple pants.

"And most of your friends, I see," Sanren said, counting up the Earthlings in the hallway. "You didn't really need to come and pay your respects again, after we said goodbye out on the lawn."

"No, I'm afraid it's something else," the Doctor said, nodding very slightly. "Your Majesty..."

"Please, don't repeat that every time, not at a moment like this," Sanren snapped. "And come on in - all of you, or as many as we can fit. Just a moment." The Doctor stepped into the room, and took a seat opposite the king in a chair made out of something that looked like wicker.

"Wh-what are you doing in here, Your Highness?" Isabel blurted out as soon as she saw the other occupant of the room besides Sanren.

"Talking with my father!" Vilandra said. "Why shouldn't we talk 'in here?'"

There was a moment of silent activity as Isabel took Alex gently, but firmly, by the upper shoulder and made as if to drag him away. However, Alex stood firm, and once Isabel had clued in that she'd need to actually pull if she wanted to get him anywhere, he very calmly and slowly walked into the room. In the end, it was Isabel who was 'dragged' in with him, refusing to let go of her beloved and scurry away on her own.

"No reason at all," Maria said. Vilandra quirked her cheek in a way that a human probably wouldn't have been able to match, and then stretched her legs out from the comfy chair that she was sprawled out on to a small footrest placed in the appropriate spot.

"If I may, I'll get us to the point," Max volunteered. "There's a small problem with our ship, your Majesty..." He broke off as Sanren glared at him. "Sir. It should be repaired soon, but in the meantime, would we be able to stay here at Brok Bay for a little longer? At least overnight?"

"Hmm." Sanren considered this. "I realize that the answer might not mean much, but what kind of a problem?"

"The, well, the Arton power cells are too weak to permit a safe flight off-planet," the Doctor volunteered. "I don't know what affected them, but most are regenerating already. There might have been a freak dimensional wave that nobody else in this sector would have detected."

Sanren waited for a moment. "Certainly, we're pleased to have you for a longer visit," he finally said. "I'll make certain that all of your rooms are still available. And Lord Doctor, are you sure that you won't reconsider and take the sixth room on the visitor's row adjoining your balcony? I understand that when, umm, when Lady Amy DeLuca arrived yesterday, you went to sleep in your remarkable vessel."

The Doctor smiled. "That's a very generous offer, which I'd ordinarily be pleased to accept, however under the circumstances, it's probably better that I stay in the TARDIS again tonight, just to keep an eye on those Arton cells."

"Of course. Let me know about anything else that you need." Sanren looked around at the crowd of visitors. "Is there anything else that you need at the moment?"

"Out of curiosity..." Rose started, and broke off as Liz gently delivered a tap from her foot to Rose's shin.

It wasn't quite soon enough. "Out of curiosity, what?" Vilandra asked.

"Do... do you know if Prince Zan is still up and around?" Rose blurted out after a second. "I realize that he's probably somewhat tired of the best wishes on his special day, but, umm..."

"My oldest son is enjoying a private evening alone with the Lady Ava," Sanren said. "As a special naming-day treat for them, since they have to be content with chaperones or group activities so much of the time. I think it would be best if no-one disturbed them."

"Of course. I do think that'll be all for us, and thank you once again," the Doctor said, and wasted no time in herding all of his friends back out into the corridor.

"Okay, what the heck is going on?" Maria whispered.

"Not now," Max told her. "We can spread the latest news once we're back to our rooms."

"And once they've been 'swept,'" Liz added meaningfully. "Again, just in case."

#

"Aunt Shelda?" Michael said, looking over at Maria and then at Max. "You really think that she's important to this whole Tess-Ava thing?"

"Well, from what Kyle described seeing during the dance, it looks like a case could be made," Max said. "Do either of you remember noticing her then?"

"Not really," Michael said, and Maria shrugged uncertainly. "Okay, so, what do we do next? I guess Guerin and DeLuca investigations' go-to move would be to break into her room and search it - but that might be awkward with Royal Security crawling around the palace, and I'm not sure what we'd be looking for, anyway."

"I think that we need to be more subtle, Michael," Maria told him. "What about trying to talk to her about Zan and the royal family? I mean, she isn't going to say anything really incriminating, but if she doesn't suspect that we're on to her she might drop a clue."

"That sounds like a good place to start," Max agreed. "For Maria. No offense, Michael, but I'm not sure that we need you on the case right now, though I'm happy to keep you in the loop."

"So what, you think that I can't handle a casual conversation with any subtlety, that I'll blow the deal for our side?" Michael thought about it. "Actually, it wouldn't kill me to sack out early, come to think of it. Don't stay up too late playing spy-girl, honey."

"Gee, thanks. So, Max, are you volunteering to be my partner, then?"

"I could - or maybe you could meet up with Liz, if you think you'd work better with her."

"Maybe. How are we going to just co-incidentally arrange a run-in with Aunt Shelda, anyway?"

#

"Yeah, I've got the hang of interfacing with the computer desktop by now," Alex said, suiting action to word as he moved his finger throught the holographic display in the room that he shared with Isabel. "Tracing Shelda won't be hard, and I don't think that inquiries like that are terribly easy for other people to track. If security is bound and determined to know exactly what we've been doing with the computer, they can probably find out, but it won't set off any alarms otherwise."

"Good," Liz said, and turned to Isabel. "I just bet you can guess what I'm thinking of for your assignment."

"Oh, boy, can I ever," Isabel shot back. "All I have to do is dream. Again."

"Okay, here's Shelda," Alex reported. "Looks like she's up in the scenic parlour. That'll be a good setting for a casual conversation."

"Sounds good," Liz said, and pulled out a small flat rectangle that fit easily over the palm of her hand. "Hello, my dear soulmate?"

"How lovely to hear your voice, my dearest love," Max's voice came softly from the rectangle. "Has Alex worked his magic already?"

"Yeah, he's found Shelda. Umm. let's see, it looks like she's up one flight of stairs, and then..."

"Oh - we can see the whole route from here."

"You can?" Liz exclaimed, surprised.

"I sent the schematic from my desktop to Michael's," Alex said. "Easy-peasy."

"Well, good enough," Liz reported. "All up to Michael and Maria now?"

"No, Max benched Michael." Now it was Maria who was speaking through Liz's rectangle. "And he's letting me pick a replacement partner, so I pick you, chica. Meet me out in the hallway in thirty seconds?"

"Umm..." Liz looked down at her clothes automatically, then shrugged. "Sure." She passed the rectangle over to Isabel. "Do you know how to work these?"

"No, but I figure Max or somebody can help us out," Isabel told her. "Good luck!"

"Thanks." Just as Liz was opening the hallway door, somebody tapped from the patio, and Alex keyed an automatic control to slide open the patio door.

"Hello, Valentis," Isabel said. "Liz, wait a second."

"What?" The question was muffled as the door swung shut behind Liz.

"Could you come back in here a moment?" It took a few seconds, and when the door opened again, both Liz and Maria filed in, which meant that the room was suddenly rather crowded. "Okay, Maria, if you're team captain... I'll make a pitch on behalf of Jim to make it a trio. He's got a lot of experience talking to people without making it obvious to them that they're being interrogated, and looking for small clues in people's behaviour. Of course, he didn't know about Michael and I until it was completely, blindingly obvious, but..."

Kyle broke out laughing as his father rolled his eyes up towards the heavens. "Yeah, what the heck, he's probably good for something," Maria decided. "Do you know what the mission is, Mister V?"

"Well, I've been briefed on the overall situation," Jim said, pointing a thumb over towards Kyle. "I assume that we're off to talk to Shelda Dervensee?"

"Yeah," Liz agreed. "Subtle is the watchword, just trying to figure out what her general attitude is towards Zan and the royal family, Ava getting involved with Zan, and that kind of thing."

"Background interview, casual style," Jim interpreted. "Good enough for me."

"Good, then let's go," Maria said. "We don't know how long she'll be hanging tight where she is."

After a moment Jim nodded, and the party of three made their exit out the door. Isabel looked pointedly at Kyle. "Can we help you with something?"

"Umm, I guess not - unless you happen to know where Rose got to," Kyle muttered. "I checked - our room, but there was no-one there."

"Hmm." Alex considered. "Last I saw her, she was with the Doctor - and I'm not quite sure where they were going to go, if not there. Back to the TARDIS perhaps? Is that where you guys just came from?"

"Yeah, but they could have taken a different route," Kyle muttered. "Maybe I should go back and try her." But he didn't make a move towards either door out of the room.

"You don't seem quite sure about that," Isabel noticed dryly.

"I dunno, I guess I'm not sure if I should bother her," he mumbled, sitting down on the desk chair that Liz had vacated. "How did she seem, after leaving the TARDIS?"

"Alright, as far as I know," Alex said. "She was a bit quiet, but then, she and the others were trying not to give away the whole thing about Shelda until we could get back here and talk privately. Oh, Rose almost went and asked Sanren about Shelda directly before Liz shut her up, I think."

"Oh." Kyle considered that. "Makes sense. She's not really as used to this sort of covert investigation as we've become, and the dangers of being too obvious."

"Yeah," Isabel agreed. "Oh, and I'm not sure if this is relevant at all, Kyle, but I thought I'd mention it. Sanren offered the Doctor the empty room at the end of the row here, and he said no, that he'd prefer to stay in the TARDIS, keeping an eye on the power cells or whatever. That was part of the cover for why we have to stay here until we're done investigating Shelda."

"Okay." Kyle stood up. "I guess I'll go knock on the TARDIS door and see if I get any answer."

"Okay." Alex cocked his head, considering for a moment. "Where did you guys leave Maria's mom?"

"Right!" Kyle exclaimed. "She's in Dad's room. Well, the room that she's sharing with Dad. He said that he wouldn't be long - probably someone should go tell her that he's off on a job." And with that, Kyle opened up the patio doors again. "See you later!"

"Kyle!" Isabel called after him, but no no real effect. She sighed and looked back at Alex. "Okay, so who's left in the rooms now? Just us and Michael?"

"Well, also your brother I believe," Alex reminded her, heading back over to the computer 'desk-top.' "I'm liking this room-to-room communication using the desktops. I'll leave them a message letting them know about Missus DeLuca, and the Valentis... and then, Isabel, you are going to let yourself relax. You'll be no good dreamwalking if you keep yourself this uptight."

"Okay, okay," Isabel said, lying down on the bed. "Oh, hey, are you good enough with those Antarian computers by now that you can use them to investigate Shelda electronically?"

"Hmm, like what?" Alex turned to her. "Like break into a computer system she has back where she lives? I don't think so."

"No, well, I wasn't thinking about anything like that," Isabel told him, closing her eyes. "Just - I dunno, whatever the equivalent of a Google search is, if they have enough of a worldwide computer network for that. Background detail, like what Liz and the others are doing. I know that you're not likely to find a smoking gun in the computer info that's available to half the planet, but you might be able to..." She paused and blew out a long breath between pursed lips. "To figure out enough to help me find out what I need to do, if I get into her dreams. I'm the one most likely to really find out what Shelda's hiding."

"Yeah," Alex said softly, rolling the chair over and putting his hand over hers. "I'm sorry that you have to do this again, I know that - well, that you almost never look forward to dream-walking."

"Unless it's my idea," Isabel told him, her lips forming into faint smile. "Unless I'm just doing it for recreational purposes, as opposed to serious Club business."

"Yeah, something like that."

"Oh, no, I just thought of something." Isabel suddenly sat up. "Do we even know if... well, there's several problems with this that just occured to me. Is it possible that Shelda will be able to use some Antarian power technique to block me out of her dreams? Or to trap me inside her mind once I get there? Will the Royal Security be able to detect what's going on, and start asking questions? And do we have a frickin' picture of the woman?"

"I think that Liz and Maria will be able to figure something out for the picture," Alex told her. "Lie back down. As far as the rest of it - well, we'll figure it out somehow. But you need to relax."

Isabel didn't lie back down, but she smiled a very different kind of a smile. "Why don't you come over and relax me?"

"I thought that you wanted me to google Shelda Dervensee on the computer."

"No, the only person I want you googling is... no, sorry, I can't finish that sentence." Isabel tugged on Alex's hand. "How about goggling at me instead?" She brought her free hand to the buttons on her sweater, but actually had some difficulty undoing them like that.

Alex was happy to solve that problem for her.

#

"Okay," Liz said, slipping the computer rectangle into the front pocket of her baggy jeans, and shot quick looks at Maria and Jim Valenti, who both nodded. Without a word, the three walked up to the open doorway, and Liz poked her head inside. "Ohh - hello."

They hadn't been quite sure if Aunt Shelda would be alone, or if there would be a lot of other company in the parlour, though it seemed almost certain that she wouldn't be spending time with her niece or Prince Zan, and unlikely that Sanren or Princess Vilandra would have beaten them there. She certainly hadn't particularly been expecting the other person in the room along with their target. "Good evening, Miss Liz Parker," Rath told her, and made a 'come-in' gesture with his right hand. "Shelda and I were just having a drink and talking a bit about the North Country. She was born not that far from my family homeland in North Tilles."

"Well, we didn't mean to interrupt a walk down memory lane or anything," Liz said, Maria and Jim following her into the room. "But a beverage and a bit of convivial conversation sounds like a good deal tonight, if you don't mind us joining you. None of the brandy, though." The Doctor had warned them all that Antarian Brandy had a heavy dose of benzene components that were harmful to pure humans, and even to Liz, whose metabolism was still mostly homo sapiens. The three pod squad hybrids had rather enjoyed the intoxicating effect, that they'd never been able to experience safely on Earth, but none of them had over-indulged in drink on account of the secrets to be kept.

"Sure, come on in," Shelda said. "I'm a bit confused though - weren't you supposed to have arrived at some other planet by now, in that nifty little Time Lord spaceship?"

"Yeah, we were supposed to, but the batteries were dead when the Doctor tried to liftoff," Maria said off-handedly. "Some sort of wibbly-wobbly dimensional shift thing. So we're stuck here until the morning, or maybe later. Lord of the palace has been informed and all that."

"Alright, well, it's nice to see you again," Rath said with a smile at the two earthling girls that went just a shade beyond 'pleasant,' though it wasn't really salacious enough to offend either - though Liz thought that Vilandra would probably have been upset if she was there to witness. "Help yourself to anything from the bar, and - do any of you have a preference for conversational topic?"

"You can just keep on with what you were saying about North Tilles," Jim said, stepping over to the sideboard and pouring a tumbler of a clear liquid with a label that he recognized - it was water lightly flavored with a touch of fruity sweetness and half a smidge of something spicy. "Maria, Liz?"

"Rynec, please," Maria asked immediately, and Liz nodded and held up two fingers on her left hand.

"Actually, what I was saying wasn't exactly about North Tilles," Shelda told them. "Er - depending on how you define the term. Tilles is a large continent, and there's a patch of it bordering on the Polar sea that used to be the Assembly Region of Selez, but was renamed as the province of North Tilles during the reign of Sanren's great-grandfather for a couple of complicated political reasons. The point is, the city where I was born is in the northern half of Tilles, but not within the borders of the province of North Tilles."

"Got it," Jim said, passing the girls their drinks. "Go on."

"No, wait, I'd like to ask one other thing," Liz said. "Selez - that's a part of your family name, right Rath?"

"Yeah," Rath explained. "That's part of the political stuff - the first Liaretian kings on the throne didn't want to keep province names that were based off the noble families that had controlled their Regional Assemblies."

"Oh, so the dynasty's only been going for four generations or so at this point?" Maria asked. "I guess I hadn't realized that."

"I had," Jim said. "And with all due respect, I'd rather if this conversation didn't stray any further into an Antarian history lesson just now."

"That's fine," Maria said. "Go on."

"Well, umm." Shelda shook her head, trying to find her place. "There was a stone pillar about a mile outside of town - some flukey geological thing, like a very small plateau about forty feet high and maybe a hundred yards across, with a few shrubs and grasses growing on top of it. For some of the young people in my neighborhood, it was a coming of age challenge to go out there and climb up the side of the thing without using any gear."

"Wasn't that terribly dangerous?" Maria asked.

"Not really," Shelda said. "If you know how to use the power reasonably well, you can catch yourself safely if you fall from a height like that - and it was okay to have somebody watching and 'spotting' you, so that if you couldn't catch yourself with your powers, they could do it for you. But it's a lot harder to use powers to support yourself while you're climbing without making it totally obvious that you're faking it, of course."

"So, did you do it on your first try?" Liz asked Shelda.

"Oh, no - I must have fallen off at least six times, but I refused to give up. Especially after - well, I had my heart set on a boy who was about a year older than me, Pinchan, who'd made it up when he was fourteen, on his first try. He made it very clear that he'd kiss me when I could meet him up on the plateau, having gotten up there by myself."

"I guess there's nothing like having a strong motivation," Jim said, laughing. "So you got up there after trying for maybe the seventh time?" Shelda nodded. "And did things with Pinchan ever come to more than a kiss?"

"Well, yes," Shelda admitted. "Not that much further, though - he liked me well enough, but - I guess after a few months of... of a very informal courtship, I suppose..."

"Dating, roughly," Liz put in. "In Earth slang, at least, that seems to fit."

"What do palm fruits have to do with courting?" Shelda asked.

"Sorry - translator must be getting a bit screwy," Maria put in. "Dates, as in specific social occasions between two people who have a romantic interest in each other... though 'dating' has become the term even when there aren't formal dates. Never mind, go ahead describing the courtship your way."

Shelda shook her head in confusion. "Yes - well, as Pinchan and I got to know each other, we realized that there were certain aspects of our personalities that didn't fit that well together - nothing that we couldn't have worked through together, at least in theory, but... well, I had a family example of a relationship going wrong, and because of that I guess I got scared of. In fact, I backed away from several fine young men before I realized that I needed to come to terms with my deep-seated fears if I was ever going to find myself a mate."

"A family example?" Jim prompted. "Was that your parents?"

"No, your older sister, right?" Rath put in. "Ava's mother?"

"Yes," Shelda muttered.

"Oh, Max told me a little about that," Liz said. "How she bonded early with a guy who wasn't right for her, and they even had a child together, Ava's older half-brother, and how they needed to get their bond severed by a specialist, which left the half-brother without any natural tie to his birth father."

"Ava told Max about all that?" Rath said, sounding surprised.

"Yeah, last night I guess. They talked very late out in the garden, along with Michael and the Doctor."

"So, anyway, because I was trying to avoid Ardra's mistakes with Carrin, I ended up blundering into my own," Shelda said in a very little voice.

There was a pause, and then Maria said, "Do you ever wonder if Zan's really a good match for Ava?"

Shelda turned to stare at her. "Well, they're not going to be Zhorva, like her mother was. You just need to look at them to see that."

"No, I guess not," Jim agreed. "Or at least, I'll take your word for it, because I don't really follow this Zhorva stuff myself. But when I met Kyle's mother... Michelle was pretty, and she thought that I was handsome, and we were both a little lonely and looking for somebody to love. That was enough for us for several years. But it wasn't enough to last, and one morning she just headed off for someplace new. I can tell how much that's hurt my son over the years, that his mother didn't love him, or me, enough to stay in our lives. And marrying Zan - if Ava and Zan do agree to take that step, is something that Ava's not likely to be able to walk away from. Do you think that their love will be enough for a lifetime?"

This time the silence was thick enough that it seemed you could poke a knife into it and thus support the knife at any point in the air you pleased. Liz wondered if her friends had gone too far, but at least it seemed that they'd managed to find an avenue through which Isabel could find out more by dreamwalking Shelda - if the woman didn't suspect them or couldn't block Isabel out of her sleeping subconscious.

"I... I don't know. I hope that they'll be okay - if they do get married, I mean," Shelda muttered finally. She sounded more stricken and uncomfortable than suspicious, Liz realized - as if Valenti's example had really struck home. Great, the last thing they really needed, to do something that actually might change the Royal Four's future. "I mean, my mate and I - we're not that different from the way you described yourself Michelle, Jim. But we're still doing okay, at least so far. Not all of us are lucky enough to find the big love, the crazy soulmate thing, and have to find somebody who we can live with and have families together as best we can."

"Maybe you're right," Liz said, feeling horribly guilty because she had found that, in Max. But she needed to reassure Shelda about that - or she might find Max pulled away from her by the cruel forces of the space-time continuum. "Maybe we should change the subject to something a little bit less - upsetting?"

"Sure," Shelda agreed very quickly. "Mister Valenti, do you have something less depressing to share with us?"

"As it happens, I think that I do," Jim said, with a big grin. "Just recently, I've found somebody new - probably not a crazy soulmate, but I think that we do love each other very much. We're planning to get married in two months, once the summer season starts back home."

"Oh, how lovely," Shelda exclaimed. "Who is it?"

"My mom," Maria said, with a resigned and tolerant smile for her stepfather-to-be. "The one who showed up yesterday afternoon."

"Marvelous," Shelda said. "I didn't realize that the two of you were - romantically involved. Did you and Kyle meet before your parents were engaged?"

"Yes," Maria said. "But they knew each other when they were my age, and then lost track of each other for years." She cocked her head at Jim. "Do you want to tell her the whole story, from almost running my mom over on?"

#

The knocking went unanswered for almost a minute before Alex finally dragged himself to the door and let Maria and Liz in. "Did something happen to Jim?"

"He just went to keep his fiancee company," Maria told him. "Why do you have the lights turned out?"

"Because I was trying to get some sleep, since you were taking forever," Isabel grumbled from the direction of the bed.

"Well, we're here now," Liz said. "And we've got something for you, but you're going to have to be careful that Shelda doesn't take any particular notice of your dream, if you can." She stepped past Alex and pushed the pressure spot that flooded the bedroom with light.

Alex and Isabel both groaned at the sudden illumination, and Isabel picked up a pillow and threw it towards Liz's head. Liz caught the projectile with no particular difficulty. "Why careful?" Isabel asked.

"Well, it almost seemed to me that Shelda was feeling - regretful about Ava and Zan being together when Jim brought up the question of if they were a good match. If she really is pushing her niece towards a Royal Marriage, we don't want her to actually back off now, just to know about it for later."

"No, I guess we don't," Isabel muttered. "Okay, I'll do what I can. Is that it?"

"No," Maria said. "Here comes some of the rest." Max and Michael filed in through the still-open door, and closed it behind them. "How much do you remember of what Ava told you last night about her mother's Zhorva young love affair?"

"A fair bit I guess, why?" Max said, sitting down on the dresser-top next to Liz and hugging her shoulders with one arm.

"Because that's the key to Shelda's guilt and regret," Liz said. "Isabel's going to need to figure out how to get close enough to it to get the answers we need for Tess, while not pushing that open wound hard enough to rewrite history."

"Oh, joy," Isabel muttered. "Okay, first, before you start with the explanations that I'm going to need to remember, somebody hand me my light brown carry-on bag. I stashed half a bag of M&M's in there, and I need the caffeine fix now if I ever did."


	25. Chapter 25

Isabel blinked when she was first struck by a bright, hot sun shining down into her face and along the front of her body. "Oh, hello Isabel. Do you have any idea why we're here?"

At first Isabel couldn't help but cringe when she recognized Shelda Devensee's voice and knew that Ava's aunt had recognized her. She was supposed to be surreptitiously inside the dream of Ava's Antarian Aunt, and so far seemed to be earning zero points out of ten for stealth. However, when she looked over at Shelda, and found an Antarian girl who seemed to be at most her own nineteen years, she didn't see any suspicion at all in that innocent face.

Shelda had to still have some of her adult memories, if she had identified Isabel, but apparently didn't seem to think anything was odd about seeing some Earth girl who she had just met in a dream of her childhood. Dreams could certainly be at least that jumbled sometimes - Isabel knew that much from personal experience. "Umm, I don't even know where we are," Isabel said without thinking it through, and then decided that pretending ignorance could go even further than admitting it honestly. "Or who you are. What happened to Roswell?"

"Umm... that's a long story," Shelda said, with a private smile. "We're at the rock of Nairda, near the city where I grew up in the province of Bubozif."

Isabel couldn't keep from laughing. "You're not making up those names, are you?"

"No!" Shelda insisted. "Keep quiet, you're just an Earth girl who wouldn't even understand my language without the TARDIS thing - and if you weren't a fragment of my dream."

"Gotcha," Isabel agreed. "I'll keep quiet - for now." To herself, she wondered if being inside Shelda's dream was indeed confusing her understanding of the Antarian language, or providing a translation that worked in a different way from the TARDIS. Had the time lords who had devised the translation field planned for it to cover dream-walking?

"No, I guess you don't have to do that," Shelda said with a sigh. "I appreciate the company, actually - just, try not to ask stupid questions, okay?"

"Gotcha."

There was a long silence. "Which means that I'll have to start the conversation by rambling, I suppose," Shelda continued, wandering towards the rock. "I guess it's natural that I should dream of being back here, after talking with Rath and your friends about climbing up this way and about meeting Pinchan."

"Okay." Isabel considered. "How does being here make you feel? I hope that that's not a stupid question."

"Well, no, but it sounds terribly like something that a psychologist might ask you about a dream in a session, isn't it? Getting asked the question inside the dream is something like irony."

"Maybe a little," Isabel said. "Somehow I'm surprised that you have psychologists on Antar - and irony."

"Some things are nearly universal," Shelda remarked. "Well, I feel uneasy, as if this rock is representing more than just my past with Pinchan, but some other deep dark secret that I haven't been willing to admit to myself." She reached out to touch the rough surface of the cliff, which was reasonably full of appendage-holds. "And I'm not in a mood to hide from my own secrets tonight, so what do you say, Isabel? Up to the top or give it our all trying, and see what's there when we make it?"

"Umm... I'm up for it if you are," Isabel muttered. "Can't say that I'm good with climbing when I'm awake. Is it true that if you hit the ground when you're dreaming, you die of a heart attack?"

"I don't know, but I don't intend to let myself hit," Shelda said, taking two handholds, then one foothold and another. Isabel nodded and waited, deciding that she'd be best off taking the same route that Shelda had chosen after her, instead of trying to find a parallel track up.

Climbing up the rock face in a dreamscape was somehow surreal for Isabel, as if her fear of falling had been turned off, and though the weight of her body as she was hanging on felt more or less normal, she missed her footing several times, and was able to recover it in a way that seemed as if an invisible force was helping her out, though maybe that was just because she didn't have enough experience climbing to know when you really could get a second chance like that.

In just a few minutes, Shelda was hauling herself up over the edge, (and showing Isabel way too much of an Antarian posterior in tight pantaloons at the same time,) and Isabel hurried to follow. As she struggled to her feet, something was immediately wrong when compared to her expectations. For one thing, they were inside a room, or possibly just half a room in half a house, bisected by the cliff.

Well, when in doubt, ask the dreamer. "Where are we? Shelda, do you recognize this place?"

Shelda looked around and shuddered. "This - uh, it's none of your business. What are you doing in my dream anyway, Isabel Evans?"

Isabel smiled slightly to herself. She knew how to spot when someone was scared of having the truth come out, from years of experience. Apparently the signs weren't so difficult to recognize even for another species. "That's not going to work, Shelda. If I'm here, it's because I need to be here for you to face your dark secrets." Would Shelda believe that? "You're going to have to answer my questions. If you don't want to tackle where, then here's another one." She pointed at a cute little Antarian rug-rat, dressed in a pretty light blue jumper, crawling on his hands and knees through a doorway towards them. "Who's he?"

Shelda chuckled. "She. Who'd dress up a baby boy in blue?"

"Guess that's a cultural gap," Isabel muttered to herself. "Okay, then, who is she?"

"Probably Ava," Shelda said with a fond smile. "This is the house that her parents lived in for the first four years of her life, or at least part of it. The real house wasn't built on a mesa top with walls open to the cliff edge."

"Yeah, I should hope not," Isabel said, walking over to pick baby Ava up. "So why were you scared to tell me about this place? Is there some bad memory that is rooted here?"

"No, nothing bad ever happened in this house," Shelda insisted. "We should stay right here and finish the dream."

"Yeah, right," Isabel muttered. If Shelda's panic reaction was leading them to stay in the house, then whatever she was afraid of wasn't here, surely enough, but it had to be close. Maybe in the neighborhood that the house had been a part of. Dream rules being what they were, there was no guarantee that if Isabel went out the front door of the house, she'd actually find the neighborhood. It had been a mismatch that had brought them here, after all, and the dream house could be on top of the mesa with Shelda's old sweetie waiting for her, or in a jungle, or just about anything else. But she didn't want to hang around somewhere that Shelda Dervensee thought was safe.

It took her a lot of tries to find the front door, and Isabel ran into other dream figures along the way, including family members who weren't exactly happy to find a stranger holding their little daughter/sister, but eventually Isabel found the door, the entire Dervensee clan trailing at her heels now, and pushed the button to slide it open, wondering just what she'd find.

"Don't do that!" Ava's mother yelled, and started rummaging in a chest of drawers near the door. But it was too late to stop the door from opening, and the scene that greeted Isabel was indeed a small-town neighborhood, with a few differences that she could see.

First, there was the thick fog, white with a blueish tinge, which seemed to blow through in uneven clouds, and completely masked anything more than half a block away. Everybody out walking in the fog, from elderly couples walking arm in arm with one cane on either side, to the little boys who stood a few feet high, were wearing some kind of gas masks strapped to their faces, and all of them, with the possible exception of the little boys, seemed to be very focused on where they were going.

A wheeled vehicle drove down between the sidewalks, and Isabel peered at it through the fog. The driver and passenger didn't appear to be wearing masks, but the entire vehicle seemed much bulkier than an Earth car, or the comparable vehicles that she'd seen at Brok Bay. Puzzled, she stepped over the threshold, trying to get a better look, and immediately started coughing and wheezing as she breathed in the foggy air. In her arms, little Ava started to cry and squirm herself.

Belatedly taking the hint, Isabel rushed back inside the house and blindly stabbed for the button that would close the door again. Once she had her breath back, she turned to Ava's mother, who had pulled something out of a drawer that extended sideways out of the chest and was holding it out to her.

It was a gas mask.

"What the heck is going on out there?" Isabel demanded, throwing her free arm in the direction of the door.

#

"Uh-oh," Alex muttered, as Isabel's catatonic body started to tremble and shake in distress. "I think that the dream's getting into a bad bit."

"Should we try to snap her out of it?" Liz asked, biting her lower lip as her brown eyes filled with worry.

"No," Alex insisted. "Not for something like this. I don't think that there's anything in Shelda's dream that could actually hurt her, and if there is - then there'll be a clearer sign than this. She told me once that when dreams take a bad turn is usually where she learns the best details. I'm not sure if she was thinking of this kind of situation, but it makes some kind of sense."

"Alright," Max said. "I do hope that Isabel manages to find something out, because she's really our only lead left."

"We could try dropping in on the rest of Ava's family," Liz suggested. "Finding them might be a bit of a pain, but still. There's no hard and fast rule that we have to go back to the present to meet Tess as soon as we leave Brok Bay."

"The Doctor might have something to say about that," Alex pointed out. "I think that he planned out this little jaunt to minimize the chances of interfering with the past, and still we've had two close calls, as I make it - Vilandra's ghost and Aunt Shelda."

"Yeah, you may be right," Max said. "If the Doctor says that we pull out of Antar's past, then we go." He cocked his head. "Did anybody tell him what we were trying with the dream walking?"

"I don't know," Liz said, looking over at Isabel, who had started to quiet down. "What's his Time-Lordiness up to, anyway?"

"Not sure, aside from keeping watch over the TARDIS and pretending that he's keeping an eye on the power cells," Alex pointed out. "But wasn't Kyle last seen going over to check and see if Rose was in there with him? He would have been able to bring them both up to speed on the plan."

"Did we know the whole plan the last time Kyle was around?" Liz asked. "I thought that was when we were going over to casually chat with Shelda, so nobody had come up with the plan to dreamwalk her yet."

"No, we knew that she might have to dreamwalk to follow up any leads that you got from talking to her," Max replied. "But maybe somebody should go to update the Doctor with what's happened since then." He sighed to himself. "It's been a long day, and a long evening."

"I don't think that anybody should go running off quite yet," Alex pointed out. "Isabel's coming 'round."

"She is?" Max asked. Isabel didn't seem to be obviously shaking off her dreamwalker's trance yet, her finger still on a borrowed portable communicator with which Jim Valenti had captured a visual image of Shelda Dervensee.

Liz chuckled. "Give Alex a little credit for understanding your sister more deeply than you do by now, dear."

"That much, I have no problems admitting," Max laughed. "I certainly wouldn't want to be as intimate with her as Alex is."

"Trust me, none of us want that," Isabel mumbled, and one of her eyes flicked open. "Okay, I think that I've got the details. Hopefully, I also managed to end the dream in a way that won't make Shelda back off on her level of pressure with Ava."

"Is this going to make me feel guilty about letting the past fulfill itself?" Max asked her.

"I don't think so - it's a bit of a noble goal, though possibly impractical. Let's see, umm." Isabel coughed, and crawled into Alex's arms. "Something to drink first would be good. Not that Rynec stuff."

Liz went to fetch a glass of water. Isabel took a sip, rinsed her mouth out with it, looked around for a moment as if wishing that she had something to spit out into, and then reluctantly swallowed. Liz stifled a snicker.

"Don't rush yourself, honey," Alex advised.

"I'll try not to. Let's see. There's a large town over on Breoll, where Ava's family lived for a few years - actually, she may have been born there, I'm not sure. Miserable little place, even by Breoll standards. It's a mining town, and there are poisonous gases that come out of the mine shaft and hang around the entire area, like this blue-tinged fog. I saw the stuff, in Shelda's dreams... she wasn't living with them at the time, it was just Ava's parents and siblings, including her half brother, but Shelda visited."

"Why did they build a town there?" Alex asked.

"Money and power, I guess it comes down to. I didn't really understand what they were mining, but it's something that was only found at that one spot on all known planets, and very valuable, partly because of that scarcity. And the mines are big enough that there need to be a lot of workers, and processing plants reasonably close. Some of the mine workers have their families live away from the mine town and the gas, but some of them can't afford to, and some of the families don't want to. It's pretty safe, as long as your house is properly air-conditioned and you're careful about wearing gas masks outside and all of that stuff, but still, it seems a pretty shitty way to live to me.

"That's where Ava's parents came in. They went there to try and improve living conditions for the worker families, and I guess part of the reason that they brought their kids was to inspire the trust and confidence of the Breoll workers - they don't just say that the new kind of houses they're putting up are more reliably gas-tight, they brought their own children to live in one of them, that kind of thing. But in the end, there wasn't as much that they could do for those Breoll as they'd hoped, and after they got back home to Antar, the Dervensees came up with a different plan, but there was at least one big problem with it."

"Well, don't keep us hanging," Max muttered when Isabel trailed off awkwardly.

"It was something that would take royal approval," Liz guessed. "The Granilith maybe, or just top-level diplomatic access, since changing the local conditions around such an important mine could be considered interference over Breoll sovereignty."

"Both of the above." Isabel took another drink of the water. "Still, it was just an idle notion, as the kids grew up, until something else happened. There was an accident of some sort in part of town, with the air conditioning failing, and an old safety device malfunctioned. Several hundred Breeolyn, and a few visitors, are stuck in time-stasis now, on the point of suffocating to death. Nobody can turn off the stasis without letting them die, so they're just stuck in limbo. The Granilith is probably the only thing that can save those people's lives, but the Breoll government won't ask King Sanren if he'll help them. And the rest of the safety equipment in town is just getting worse and worse."

"So what happened then?" Alex asked. "Do you know how much the older Dervensees connived to get influence over the Granilith, and the royal family?"

"That's still a little bit unclear," Isabel admitted. "I've got part of Shelda's version of events. She was the one who first really paid attention to the fact that Zan was around the same age as Ava, and that they were both starting to go through Antarian puberty at the time. She did arrange for Ava to visit the seaside town with her girlfriends from school, at the same time as Zan would be there, but claims that she didn't do anything else to make sure that they would meet. And I couldn't really get a straight answer about how much she did to encourage Ava after hearing that she and Zan had met."

"Okay." Max stepped close to the bed, and reached out to touch Isabel on the arm for a moment. "Thanks for stepping up, Isabel. You did well." He sighed. "Okay, now somebody should go to catch the Doctor up to speed, and probably that means you at least, since you've got the direct information. Any preference for who you want to go with you?"

"Oh, come on Max," Isabel edged away from Alex and lay her head down on the fluffy pillow. "Any of you can take the secondhand news to whoever you like, and I'll debrief anybody in the morning. Preferably either over breakfast, or after breakfast. But me needs sleep right now."

Max, Liz, and Alex exchanged looks. "Though she hasn't asked for you specifically, I think that having her Alexxy to snuggle with will keep Isabel happier, and the last thing we need is for her to get any crankier tonight," Liz said with a smile. "Max, I think that we can relay the update before hitting the sack. What do you think?"

"That we should get out of their room, immediately if not sooner," Max chimed in. "Goodnight, and we'll see you both at breakfast."

"Bye now, sweet dreams," Alex said, waving and stretching out under the light covers next to Isabel.

Max and Liz let themselves out via the balcony doors.

#

Kyle woke up with a headful of blonde hair in his face, and smiled to himself. "Hey, are you up already?" he whispered.

"Do I look as if I'm up, Valenti? I'm right down here with you."

"Yes, but I guess that answers the question I was really asking." Kyle stretched his legs out on the bed slightly. "I guess that I'm a little bit surprised that we made it to daybreak without getting woken about some new development on the Aunt Shelda thing."

"Well, you weren't sending out 'Hey, come talk if you have questions or need help' signals last night," Rose pointed out, stretching her arms out, one of them running along his side. "But I guess that we're not going to learn anything more until we go out for breakfast."

"Well, not unless we have something to learn from each other." Kyle sat up, got his feet oriented properly to slide into slippers, and reached out for a robe. "What's going on with us, Rose? I mean, from your perspective. I could have sworn that you were really into me, and then yesterday, just before the naming day party, it was like something made you cool off."

"Well, yeah, I guess that something did." Rose admitted. "I don't remember exactly when it was offhand, but you kissed me, and somehow I guess I could see something from deep inside you. I'm not sure if that's because Max healed you and you're partially alien now, or maybe I'm a little bit psychic myself now from travelling so much with the Doctor. I don't suppose that really matters."

"So what was this thing that you saw, that was enough to make you drop me like a hot potato? Did you get a flash of the way I used to treat girls? Or maybe it was just that I seem so young and immature, compared to a woman like you."

"Neither," Rose whispered softly. "Well, there was one other girl, but not one that you treated badly, as far as I could tell. And she might have treated you better than she did, but there's still a piece of your heart that's true to her, after all this time."

"Dammit." Kyle flopped down into the desk chair. "Tess. I really didn't want to hear that, from you. I don't want to even like her anymore, after the stunt that she pulled."

"Is - is it okay if I ask about the two of you?" Rose's voice was soft and her face very sympathetic. "I mean, I've picked up some of the broad strokes of how she fit into the rest of the gang, but..."

"I asked her to our junior prom," Kyle muttered, wondering if this would be relevant to what Rose wanted to know. "I finally admitted to myself that night that I liked her like that, that I might be falling in love with her. And she told me that I was like a brother to her. Then Liz went looking for Max and found him kissing Tess. Max had been Liz's date, too."

"Oh," Rose muttered. "That must have been hard for both of you."

"Yeah. And it was a few weeks later that I saw Max walking Tess home - the next day at school they were holding hands walking down the hall and everything, and soon enough the word was going around in the group that Tess was pregnant."

"Wow." Rose took a deep breath. "Did she say anything to you before she left?"

"Not really," Kyle admitted. "There wasn't much time before the Granilith launched, and the four of us had just rushed up to the pod chamber to let Max and the others know how Tess had used Alex to make sure that she had a way home, and that he was in bad shape as the mindwarp wore off. There was a lot of arguing about that, and if Tess had arranged the whole thing to steal the Granilith for anybody, and no time for anything else."

"Right." Rose took a deep breath. "Well, as much fun as it might have been to take the next step with you, it's looking like the timing's not so great. Once the Aunt Shelda thing is worked out, we're off to face Tess, and you'll be able to get some closure if that's what you want - but then the Doctor and I will be heading off for some other place and time. I mean, unless you want me to ask him if he'd consider taking you with us, at least for a while. He's done that before, but I'm not even sure if that's what you'd want."

Kyle considered that. "I'll think on it, but I'm not sure I need to get mixed up with other aliens like that."

"Fair enough." Rose started to pull on a set of cute sweats. "Now, let's see about breakfast."

#

"Could you pass me the tea biscuits, please," Maria asked her mother.

"I think that these are scones, not biscuits dear," Amy said, but she handed the plate down the table. "Oh, say, are those birds of some sort?" She pointed out in the direction of the bay, where the orange Antarian sun had just risen.

"I can't tell in this light," Jim muttered, trying to shade his face from the bright light with one hand and still look at the tiny little black flying specks in the distance.

"Zan and Vilandra mentioned some kind of flying amphibians living out by the bay," Michael said. "Not that big, but maybe pigeon-sized. Oh hey, we've got two more. Good morning, Valenti junior, and good morning Doctor's companion."

"Hi there," Kyle said, waving at the breakfast gathering.

"Sit down and help yourself," Amy invited. "The breakfast buffet isn't Antarian cooking, and we're not sure who arranged for it."

"It could have been the Antarians, Miz Deluca," Kyle told her. "They did a pretty good job with cheeseburgers and French fries - that was before you came over."

"Could have been, honey, but it's not," Rose countered, patting Kyle on the shoulder and then taking a seat on the patio table. "I recognize the flair if not the spread. This would be the work of a one-man operation that you could call 'TARDIS Catering.'"

"The Doctor?" Jim asked.

"Actually, yeah, that kind of fits," Michael said. "He had us inside the TARDIS for breakfast one morning on Kaalto, and yeah, it was a bit like this - full English breakfast style."

"Okay, that's okay by me," Kyle said, lifting a dish cover in the center of the table. Inside were a large number of waffles, warm and crisp. He transferred two over to his plate and started looking around for some maple syrup. "Where's everybody else?"

"Well, let's see," Jim passed his son a little glass bottle full of thick dark brown liquid. "Max and Liz are presumably in their room, Alex and Isabel likewise. We haven't checked on any of them yet. And the Doctor hasn't put in an appearance while any of us have been up, and nobody's mounted an expedition down to the TARDIS to check there for him."

"So you just got up, found breakfast, and fell to?" Rose put in with a smile.

"More or less," Amy admitted.

"Michael and I went to bed late, and the other four were still up then, more or less," Maria put in. "Isabel was going to dreamwalk Aunt Shelda, and the others were planning to wait up and see what she found out."

"Okay," Jim said, nodding. "I remember somebody mentioning the dreamwalking plan, but not those details I think. So I guess none of us know how the dream went."

"I suspect it went well, if the Doctor went to all of this trouble," Rose said, waving at the breakfast spread and smiling. "A bit of a celebration, and maybe also figuring that we wouldn't need Earth food any more, so we might as well enjoy it now."

"But we're not going back to Earth straight away, are we?" Amy asked. "I thought that the plan was to go to Tess' moon." Rose just shrugged in reply.

There was some silent munching. "That is indeed the idea, Miz DeLuca," a voice suddenly announced from down over the edge of the patio, and soon the Doctor's head popped up as he climbed the last few rungs of the wall ladder. "So perhaps I'm being a bit too theatrical in using up my supplies, but why not commemorate the occasion with them. Somehow I'm not sure that we'll be spending as long at Dimares moon as we have at Kaalto and Antar, anyway."

There was a stunned silence as the Doctor strolled over to the table, picked a tater tot out of a heaping bowl of them, dipped it in a smaller bowl of ketchup, and popped it into his mouth. Then Rose chuckled.

"Good news from Isabel's dream?"

"Nuh-uh." The Doctor spun around playfully and waggled his finger in Rose's direction. "That's not the right possessive. It was Shelda's dream; Isabel was just dropping in for a visit. But the news was definitely good, though I'd like to hear a bit of it straight from the... oh, no." The Doctor took a seat opposite Rose, his face almost comically pensive. "I wouldn't want to say 'straight from the horse's mouth'; it's hardly very complimentary to such a talented young woman. Straight from the messenger?"

"Straight from the source?" Amy offered.

"Well, is Isabel the source, or just the relay to the true source, which was Aunt Shelda?" The Doctor asked. "Then again, if a relay or a messenger is good enough, why not Max and Liz who relayed from Isabel to me?"

"Straight from Isabel?" Kyle suggested, and the Doctor sighed at such a prosaic turn of phrase.

"Straight from the witness," Valenti volunteered, and the Doctor snapped fingers at him, delighted by that one. "Yes, I thought that it fits. Isabel directly witnessed, while Max and Liz were just relaying hearsay."

"Well, come on, what's the hearsay?" Michael asked. "The rest of us haven't heard anything at all."

But the Doctor just shrugged and scooped himself out a bowl of the porridge and picking out things to sprinkle into it.

#

It wasn't too long before Isabel emerged to give them all the recap of her dream. Max, Liz, and Alex also came out for breakfast at around the same time, bringing the entire Earth/Gallifrey party together out on the patio. Everybody who hadn't already heard the details listened quietly until Isabel was done.

The first to comment afterwards was Michael. "Okay, so how does this help us with Tess?"

"I'm not sure," Max admitted. "It depends on if Tess has already figured this much or more out about Ava's background. If not..."

"What have I, against your men, your mental powers, and yes, even the Granilith, which is stronger than anything that I have ever dreamed of possessing?" the Doctor asked softly. "Why, nothing, except a little grain, such a little grain of knowledge, that even yet you do not possess. Now you see it and now you don't." He looked around the table and grinned at all of his new friends. "Knowledge is always powerful. Trust me on this. Whether Tess knows this same thing about Ava's background that we do or not, we're the stronger for having learned it."

"That much makes sense to me," Amy admitted, her head cocked slightly. "Especially since it seems that she put so much stock in Ava's and Zan's story, more than the rest of you have. So, on a more practical note, what now? Just go say our final goodbyes to the Royal family and the hangers-on, and pile all into the TARDIS?"

Max looked over at Liz, who shrugged. "I don't see that there's any more unfinished business keeping us at Brok Bay."

#

As breakfast was winding up, Vilandra came out to the patio to pay a courtesy call on the visitors, a little brother and sister trailing in her wake. She asked the Doctor how the repairs or recharging of the TARDIS was going, and he gave her the good news that they were ready to make their departure at just about any time.

The news spread quickly, and there was a sizable group of the usual suspects gathered around the courtyard an hour later to give the visitors a royal sendoff. Ava rushed forward to hug Liz goodbye, which took Liz a little by surprise. "Thank you all so much, for your help with the party and everything."

Liz giggled and nudged the Antarian girl in the side. "How did your special private night go with Zan?"

"We both had a really great time." She flushed slightly blue. "Not **that** great or anything, if you know what I mean. It was just nice to talk with him and have a dinner and some music in private, without needing to worry about chaperones."

"Sounds pretty great to me," Max muttered, and Liz smiled, patting Ava's shoulder reassuringly.

"My turn, I suppose," the Doctor said, just loudly enough to help everybody pretend that they hadn't heard Ava's whispering. "Your Majesties, Your Highnesses, and all. I'd like to formally thank you for your hospitality in the names of the Time Lords of Gallifrey. Don't worry; the formality doesn't require that I list off all of their names."

Sanren nodded at the Doctor, with a smile on his face, and offered him his hand. "Not many Kings, even, get a chance to spend a few days with a living legend, Doctor," he said. "You're not just any Time Lord. It's clear from the research that I've been able to, that the Doctor is one of a kind." He paused. "Unless that's a ruse, and there are really dozens of you who just call yourselves the same thing."

The Doctor snickered, and Rose smiled a private smile. "I can assure you, Your Majesty, that there's only one of me, though sometimes you might occasionally see more than one, through a trick of the light. We've all had a great few days, but really should be leaving, unless there's somebody else who needs to say something..."

"Oh, you're not getting away quite that easily," Queen Alinda said severely. "Not without a proper send-off line." There were a few blank stares from the Roswellian contingent, and not even the Doctor quite knew what she meant by this. "Line up, all of you." Alinda gestured to indicate a straight line through the area where most of the guests were already standing, in front of the TARDIS.

Once their line was straight, the Brok Bay hosts formed a second line of their own, with Sanren and Alinda in the lead, followed by Zan and Ava, Vilandra and Rath, the younger prince and princesses, Larek, Shelda, and a few other notable persons. Sanren stepped up to Kyle, who was at one end of the Roswellian line. "Farewell, Kyle Valenti, and may the best of fortune follow you until the end of your days."

Kyle paused only a moment before reflex courtesy took over. "Goodbye, Your Majesty, and thank you for making us so welcome here in your palace. I shall bear good word of your grace and kindness, wherever I go."

Sanren smiled and moved on to Rose, standing next to Kyle, and kissed her on one cheek, while Kyle came up with a departing wish for Alinda. As she waited for the Royal couple to reach them, Liz was struck with the irony of acting out another Earth ritual from wedding traditions, in a very different alien context - this was the receiving line, but sort of backwards. (Even to the name, as in receiving and sending.) And an odd thought struck her - if any of them actually lived to go through an alien wedding ceremony, how weird would that be - for her to join her life with Max, say, in a day full of alien customs instead of the American wedding day that she'd sort of come to expect.

Then she wondered what had made her think about that. They would be going back to Earth as soon as they'd been to see Max, wouldn't they?

Then Sanren was wishing peace and dreams on Max, and Liz shook herself, realizing that she'd be up to face the full lineup next.

#

"Alright, finally ready to get on our way?" the Doctor called as Isabel slipped in through the TARDIS doors and closed them behind her. Rose had unlocked the time box after she and Kyle had finished with the sendoff line, and one by one the others had followed them inside.

"Yup," Isabel agreed. "All present and accounted for, and if anybody left luggage behind, that's just too bad."

There was a pause for anybody else to complain even so, and then the Doctor started to work the Time Vortex controls. "Last chance for anybody to speak up for a side trip back to Earth, for any reason. Anybody at all?" There was no answer. "Alright, setting co-ordinates for Dimares moon, local equivalent of April second, 2002."

Amy shook herself slightly and clung tightly to Jim's side as the distorted vworp vworp sound began. Liz didn't really feel disturbed, even though this was only her second trip in the TARDIS, but having an excuse to snuggle up to Max looked fun, so she pulled his arm around her shoulders and nestled in tight, grinning a big grin. And then it was like the police box crashed and bounced.

Everybody was either knocked off their feet by the first impact Liz looked up to see the Doctor struggling back to the controls. "What's going wrong this time?" Rose yelled at him.

"There's something fighting the TARDIS engines," the Doctor reported. "If I didn't know better, I'd call it one of the Time Lord banishment fields - but that's almost impossible." The control chamber shook again, violently, but this time the Doctor stayed at the controls. "The Arton power cells are discharging fast - as if that's the karmic payback I get for telling a tall tale about them." He pushed one of the levers up higher. "If we can't break free in another thirty seconds, then I'll have to back away and figure out what the hell's going on."

"Maybe that would be a good thing to do right now," Max suggested, a worried frown on his face, his fingers clenching at Liz's hand. But then, there was a different sensation, one of motion without motion, and Liz caught the impression of unimpeded flight for a few seconds, then the entire TARDIS shook with a hard landing. A few faint 'vworps' sounded from somewhere nearby, as if an afterthought.

"Did we make it to Dimares," Michael asked weakly.

"We'd better see," Max said after the Doctor didn't comment, just frowning at the TARDIS controls. Rose opened the doors for them, and all the Roswellian kids piled out of the police box into a very different courtyard than the one that they had just left at Brok Bay. Walls of yellow-white metal stretched twenty-five feet high in two directions. Above, an orange-yellow sun gleamed in a bright sky that shone with highlights of green through purple.

And maybe fifty feet ahead of the TARDIS doors, a giant glowing cone was lying with its curved surface resting on the uneven stone cobbles. Its surface didn't look like the Granilith had when it was in the pod chamber, but there was no way to mistake the size and shape of the artifact.

As everybody stared at the Granilith, somewhat dumbfounded, the Doctor emerged and checked on the molding at the bottom of the TARDIS. "That's odd," he muttered. "Usually it'd park itself against one of the walls, if possible, not just in the middle of nowhere like this. Then again, that certainly isn't nothing."

"Damn it all to hell, one minute too late," a familiar voice called out. Liz looked around in surprise, and then Max gently guided her around the side of the TARDIS. A blonde woman about Liz's height stood there, dressed in a floor-length long sleeved light rose gown, with a tiara of gold and pastel-pink gems in her hair. To anybody who didn't know her, she would have looked every inch a princess, or a young queen, but Liz knew Tess Harding and wasn't impressed with however she dressed herself up.

"Yeah, your time's run out," she muttered.

"Well, I kept you and your Time Lord friend away for long enough, but I guess you just wouldn't give up," Tess grumbled. "I could have kept it up for longer, if it hadn't been for that case of food poisoning that Larek gave me - kept me from attending to the Granilith."

"Wait a second, what are you going on about?" Max asked Tess. "You kept us away using the Granilith - for a long time? We only just set out to reach you a few minutes ago."

"Ooh, I get it!" the Doctor exclaimed, coming up behind them. "If Tess set the Granilith, old Time Lord relic that it is, to repel a TARDIS, then it would work, but the TARDIS slipped forward in time, trying to find a gap in the repulsor field. And it did - but then it landed us in our future, without a clear warning. Sorry about that."

"How - how far in our future?" Liz asked. Tess didn't look middle-aged or anything, but she could easily be years or even a decade more mature than when she had left Roswell. It would be hard to tell, especially since she had a rather child-like face for a sixteen year old even when Liz had first met her.

"How old is our daughter now, Tess?" Max asked, cutting to the chase.


	26. Chapter 26

For a moment, as Tess silently stared at Max, Liz could see perhaps half a dozen emotions flood over her face - fury, despair, regret, sadness, fear, and - well, perhaps that was only five, unless there was another that she couldn't quite put her finger on. Then, her voice filled with resolve, she called out "Hit the gas!"

"Hit what gas?" Max asked, confused, and reached out to grab Tess by the arm, but she spun away to avoid his touch. Then Liz heard a faint hissing sound from somewhere, and thought that she understood. Pulling Max along, she hurried back around the TARDIS and looked for the Doctor.

"Doctor! Does the TARDIS keep out dangerous gases?"

The Doctor, standing in the shadow of the Granilith cone, turned around, and took a moment to clue in. "Yes, if the doors are closed, or if the 'No Problem' device is turned on."

"Where's it coming from?" Michael demanded, whirling around and keeping ahold of Maria much as Liz was holding Max close.

Liz ignored that question, as interested as she was, and pulled at the TARDIS door - but it didn't open. Desperate now to get Max into the only shelter proof against Tess' cunning and clever trap, she scanned the rest of their rag-tag bunch again. The Doctor was jogging her way, but he was still a long way off, and she wasn't sure if he'd be overwhelmed by Tess' gas first. But Rose and Kyle had been much closer, and Rose was bringing out her key to the TARDIS.

Liz was feeling woozy with the gas by the time Rose reached the door and started to fumble with the key. Michael and Isabel had joined forces to try and push the gas away and keep safe air around them, but that tactic didn't seem to be working perfectly, perhaps because of the inherent difficulty of telling different gas molecules apart with their powers.

Finally Rose got the door opened - and a tremendous wave of alien energy knocked her down, along with everybody else who had been waiting near the police box hoping to reach safety inside. Rose didn't get up from the cobbles of the courtyard immediately, or Max and Liz felt her own level of alertness fading. She turned around and saw Tess, on her knees from the gas herself, but a grim look on that round face, and knew that above anything else she couldn't let Tess get inside the TARDIS. Slowly, achingly, she reached out to grab the edge of the open door and push it towards the interior that was so much larger than the outside of the box.

The door swung to meet the other one, which hadn't opened when Rose had unlocked the TARDIS, and remained shut. But what good would that be if Rose and the Doctor were helpless, unable to retain their keys?

But the Doctor had an answer for that, it seemed. "TARDIS," he gasped out. "Lock mode voiceprint." The blue paint seemed to flash very slightly in response.

And then Liz let herself pass out.

#

For a second, when Liz realized that she was waking up, she really expected to find herself in a decrepit dungeon, or possibly a sterile laboratory for experimentation on living subjects. But when she opened her eyes, the cues didn't make sense. The ceiling was dimly lit from underneath with blue tones, and she appeared to be on a stiff bed with clean sheets. She looked around and saw all of her travelling companions in similar beds, filling up a room that looked like nothing she knew except a children's dormitory in an old movie about boarding school. The only two people standing up in the room were Tess, and a little toddler with light brown hair and hazel eyes, who seemed to be trying to stare in every direction at once.

The girl must be Max's daughter, Liz realized with a shock that twisted her guts painfully for a moment. They'd come expecting to find a baby, but something had gone wrong with that plan, hadn't it? And then, she suddenly remembered the other thing that had gone wrong, with Tess overwhelming them all using gas. Surely she'd done something after subduing unwelcome visitors other than putting them into bed to recover. Liz checked herself and found a thick metal bracelet around her left wrist, with blinking lights of several colors, and when she checked with the fingers of her other hand, Liz couldn't find any easy way to take the thing off. "Okay, Tess, what does this thing do?" she mumbled. "Alien mind control? Torture? Or is this just your way of taking away our abilities?"

"None of those, Liz, not quite," Tess answered. "I'm sorry about all of the dramatics, and I'm not really interested in dominating or hurting anybody any more. Really. I was just afraid of what you'd do to me if you got the chance."

"That's our little Tessie," Alex grumbled sourly. "Do unto others before they do unto you."

"That's not fair," Tess insisted. "If I was giving myself carte blanche to do anything that I expected you'd do to me if you had the chance, I could have locked you in the dungeon, and definitely kept Ardra away from you. But I knew that you'd want to see her, Max."

Liz was about to try and get the subject back to the bracelets, but Max spoke up first. "Thank you, Tess," he said dryly, and Liz thought that she could sense a mix of sincerity and sarcasm in his voice. "I did want to see her very much. That's why I came here, in case you had any doubt. Not for your sake, except inasmuch as I knew that you'd have her with you."

Tess' face darkened into a frown, and Liz decided to seize the initiative before giving Tess a chance to throw a tantrum. "Bracelets? Hello? What's the point?"

"They're to stun you," Tess muttered grumpily. "In case you try to hurt me physically."

"That's pathetic, Tess," Isabel muttered. "You used to be evil. Now you're just paranoid."

"Let's not get down to the name-calling," The Doctor said. "Might never stop until somebody pulls out a temper and a gun. So, Miz Tess Harding, it's somewhat nice to meet you, in the strictest pleasantry sense, but I do hold out hope that it might get nicer. I'm the Doctor, not sure if you'd have heard rumors about me, since you were obviously expecting that Max and his friends might be along sooner or later."

"Yes, of course we've heard rumors," Tess admitted. "A mysterious Time Lord, from a great planet that was lost in a horrible war, who visited one of Larek's little colony planets and sent him word that you'd be coming here next. Larek's over to visit, by the by. He's been coming as often as he could, hoping to be here when you arrive, I think."

"And you didn't keep him away, too?" Liz asked Tess, getting up and sitting next to Max on his bed.

"No, I let him through whenever he wants to come." Tess' smile was both proud and warm. "I like Larek, and I think that he really does like me. Of course, I don't let him take guards with him. I'm not stupid or anything."

"Control freak," Michael muttered under his breath. "You have to have everything your way, on your little moon here, don't you Tess? So, what's the plan now? What does Tess say? You're not going to kill us all, apparently, so what else? Are you going to exile us into our own future, or keep us here forever?"

There was a tense moment of silence, and then the little girl spoke up. "What - what's going on, Mommy? Are these people your friends? Why are they so mad at you?"

Tess' cheeks paled, and she crouched down close to her daughter, who turned around to face her. "Honey - I didn't realize that you'd picked up so much English from me."

"She's in range of the TARDIS' translation field," the Doctor put in.

"Oh, I see." Tess slowly rose to her full height and to what dignity she could manage. "Well, you'll be staying for dinner with Larek, if that's alright. After all, you've come all this way. After we've eaten, maybe it'll be easier to sort out that next step without anybody's temper getting in the way. Including mine."

"We'd love that, Tess," Liz said. "I'm sure that as the Queen of the Moon, you must have a fancy kitchen staff here waiting on your word. Do you think that they can make a Porth'una casserole for the evening table? I've grown somewhat fond of it."

Tess' eyes narrowed slightly, as she gestured that everybody should get up and follow her to the door. "They've never been big on Porth'una at Kaalto township, as far as I can tell, and it's an old-fashioned recipe most places. How did you get a chance to try it, Liz?"

Liz shrugged. "Liz and I didn't go to Kaalto," Max told Tess. "But the Doctor was kind enough to give us a lift to play tourist in the Antar cluster."

"So that's it?" Tess demanded. "You're not going to tell me where specifically?"

"No, not when a little enigma like that could be useful," Max admitted. "Consider it our own little mystery bracelet around your mind, Tess."

Tess harrumphed and led them out of the room.

#

Tess' dining hall in her palace seemed a little homey, but that was probably just by comparison with the Brok Bay palace that they had left so recently in subjective time, and which had been in ruins for decades in Antar's history.

"Max!" a tall Rahlicx exclaimed as soon as he saw them. "It's been so long since I've seen you - for me, at least, when I'm properly me and not walking around in Brody's shoes."

"Larek!" Max shot back, glad to recognize a name at least, though the face didn't seem quite familiar. As Larek embraced him, Max risked a whisper close to the Autarch's ear. "So, do you remember us from all those years ago?"

Larek nodded. "Brok Bay," he whispered back. "Like I could ever forget the visit of the Time Lord and his friends."

"Tess doesn't know?"

"No, she hasn't accessed that many of Ava's memories yet. Alinda and I are the only ones left."

"Aww, that's so sweet," Tess called out from across the room. "The long-lost best friends, seperated by death, finally reunited in flesh, more or less."

Max drew back a little from Larek's hug and turned to stare at Tess. Larek cleared his throat and spoke with an orator's projecting voice. "Unlike some people, Tess Harding, I'm not trying to recapture what I lost with Zan Liaret by cultivating Max Evans. He's a good friend on his own merits."

Tess forced a smile onto her face. "Why don't we take our seats, and get the appetizers in here?"

Max nodded and took the nearest chair at the table, and found himself between Liz and Michael. He was a little disappointed that Larek went a bit further down the table, but told himself that that didn't matter. The things he really wanted to talk with Larek about would have to wait until Tess wasn't listening, if they could arrange that.

"So, I'm so pleased to meet you, Lady Tess Harding, after coming all this way," the Doctor said, with just the right note of grace and charm. "I've heard a lot of stories about you, as you can probably imagine."

"I deny everything," Tess tossed back, with a mixture of humor and defensiveness. Kyle choked in surprise, and he could see Jim and Amy reacting as well, remembering the time that Tess had used that line in a much happier time.

"Very well, then surely you wouldn't mind the opportunity to get some of your own side on the record," the Doctor continued earnestly. "Particularly, was this always the plan? Taking Max's child and the Granilith to Dimaras moon?"

"This was a backup plan," Tess admitted. "If the others would have come with me, or most of them, then we'd have gone to the Liaret loyalists, just like I said. We could probably have done alright with them without Michael, but I didn't like my chances missing Max or Isabel. Without any of them - they'd have taken the Granilith happily enough, but if Max chose not to come with me then I would be a dishonored bride in their eyes, a disgrace. I figured that I could do better for myself with the Granilith, if I picked a defensible power base without a strong leader."

"And I can't fault her command of political strategy," Larek volunteered.

"What can you fault, Larek?" Alex put in bitterly. "Her choice of priorities?" Larek spread his hands awkwardly, not taking the bait and giving a definite answer.

The dinner continued in awkward little verbal fencing matches from there, but everybody skated through without setting off a full hissy fit or shouting match, "So, what's your pleasure for an evening's entertainment?" Tess asked. "I can call for the minstrels, or we can adjourn to the lounge with the best of the Antarian brandy."

"Well, I hate to decline, but there's the time lag to think about," the Doctor offered. "My internal clock is saying early afternoon still, but I'll be better off tomorrow for retiring early and trying to get some rest."

"Of course, sir," Tess said. "I'll make sure that you're seen to the best guest suites in the residence - king sized beds for two, I presume?"

"That was the arrangement for most of us, in our previous travels," Liz said, smiling. "Of course, Max and I aren't living together yet back home in Roswell - my parents would blow the roof off the building at the very notion. But they don't know anything about what happens on Dimares."

"Right," Maria chimed in to support her best friend. "What about you guys, Kyle, Rose? Doctor?"

"I think you can put me down for a room of my own, with a twin bed," Kyle muttered softly.

"Aww, I'm sorry, sweety," Maria said. Kyle scowled at her, and Rose was starting to blush at the exchange.

"Well, I think that I can room with Miss Tyler," the Doctor put in. "We've done that before. Seperate beds though, I rather think."

"Won't you be sleeping in the TARDIS, Doctor?" Amy put in. "I mean, I know that you locked it as a precaution when Tess... turned on the gas, back in the courtyard, but I think we can trust her that she's not going to steal it, right Tess?"

"Why would I want to take your fancy-dancy Time Lord ship?" Tess asked. "All it can take me is somewhere else or somewhen else. What's wrong with staying here and living in the now?"

"Oh, yeah, right," Liz said. "Harumph. Like it's never crossed your mind, since hearing that time travel is possible, that if you could only go back and tell yourself to go to Roswell before Max met me..."

"Yeah, keep telling yourself that, sweetie," Tess shot back. "I liked Max, back in the day, and I'm glad that he's Ardra's father, because I love her and she wouldn't be herself if she wasn't his daughter, but the fact that he didn't pick me was not the end of my life."

"**In any event,**" the Doctor announced in a commanding voice that pre-empted whatever Liz's reply would have been, "The TARDIS doors stay closed until we're ready to leave Dimares. Just as a precaution."

"Gotcha, Doctor," Max said. "And I'm up for seeing our room and having an early night, as odd as the biological clock makes that. Wouldn't mind having a quiet brandy with you, Larek, and catching up, if you're willing."

"Certainly, Max," Larek agreed.

"Oh - what about you guys, Sheriff, Miz DeLuca?" Tess asked. "Except, oh, you're probably not back to being Sheriff again yet, are you, Mister Valenti?"

"No," Jim said with a little smile. "Amy's helping me sell my furniture, and I've been working security at the Metachem plant."

"Mostly to help us figure out if the management are alien hunters," Michael added.

"What were you going to ask about us, Tess?" Amy said. "Since you didn't get around to a specific question that strayed in my direction."

"Oh - just about, well, the subject of if you'd moved in together, I guess," Tess admitted, smiling slightly. "I notice that you seem very close."

"Oh, umm... no, we haven't actually finalized that step, not until the sale closes on my house," Jim said. "But I've asked her to marry me, and she said yes."

"And while we're here, sharing a room, and a bed, would definitely be very nice," Amy put in. "Thank you so much for asking."

"Okay." Tess sighed. "Isn't anybody going to stay for dessert at least? I wanted to see what you think of our version of Asteroid Pie."

#

"Here we are," Larek said, handing Max a bottle as he entered the bedroom. "Distilled in the foothills of South Tilles from the best honey melon - but we should all take it easy on the brandy - it's just an excuse, right?"

"I'll stick to rynac, thanks," Liz said, thanking Larek for coming with a silent smile. "Can't touch that stuff on account of the benzenediols, no matter how many powers Max gave me."

"Actually, I'll pour rynac for all of us to start," Max said, gesturing to the table which already had a few tall beakers and little glasses set out. The three of them got settled as Max set out the drinks. "So, well - how've you been, Larek?"

"Doing well enough, I suppose," Larek said, and chuckled softly. "Tess' antics really have stabilized the political situation in the sector, as much as certain people hate that she's lording the Granolith over them, threatening devastating reprisals for any aggressive moves whether they're aimed at Dimares or not. I've been able to do some good over on Rahlicx and appoint capable administrators to the colonies, despite all of the time I've spent here waiting for you to show up."

"Does Tess have a lot of visitors from the other nearby planets?" Liz asked. "Like the other leaders?"

"Well, she's invited nearly everybody over for at least one courtesy call - to establish that she really does have the Granolith and it's not going anywhere," Larek explained. "Kivar didn't get invited back after the first time, which is probably good on Tess' part, again, because I think that his priority on the first visit was to scout out and make plans for later skullduggery. Some of the leaders of the Liaret movement have been more frequent visitors than that, but still, I'm just about the only person who can effectively invite himself over. Tess liked me from the start, as nearly as I can figure."

"Right," Max agreed. "I'm tempted to ask if you've been keeping an eye on developments back on Earth, but..."

"Nuh-uh," Larek said, and Max nodded silent agreement. "At least, not until it's settled that none of you lot are going back to pick up your old lives where they left off. If so, then anything that happened on Earth in the past three years is your own future."

"I still don't understand the full sequence of events," Liz put in. "Tess was using the Granolith as a force field, to keep any ships away that she didn't specifically invite in, and particularly targeting the TARDIS... okay. And then, she's unexpectedly indisposed for a few days, and can't keep the field up for long enough, so that we can slip through, except she manages to get out to the courtyard not quite in time?"

"That's pretty much it," Larek agreed, nodding. Then he drained the last of his first glass of Rynac.

"Did you have something to do with her indisposition?" Max asked. "I think that Tess accused you of it, just before she gassed us, but..."

"Guilty as charged," Larek said. "It took me this long to figure out that what she was doing to keep ships away from Dimares had to do with the Granolith, and I knew that she didn't trust anybody else with it. Figured that it was worth a little foul play to try to shake up the situation - and your arrival was the outcome that I was going for, though I didn't figure Tess for getting the drop on you so quickly once you arrived, and giving you those ridiculous things." Larek gestured at the stun bracelets that Max and Liz were still wearing, and then began to pour a very small amount of the brandy into his glass. There was silence in the room until he had taken his first sip.

"Okay, what's your own situation?" Liz tried. "Do you still have your own abilities? Can you take these bracelets off us?"

"Yes, but I'm not sure how to restore your own powers early - they should return by tomorrow around noon, unless Tess uses the Granolith to supress them again. She'll notice if she sees any of your party without your bracelets, and that'll be trouble. What exactly is your plan? Are you here to depose Tess, or just steal Ardra away back to Earth, or what?"

Max and Liz exchanged a sidelong glance. "I think that I want custody of Ardra, one way or another," Max decided. "Can she live back on Earth? Was Tess telling the truth about..."

"I don't know," Larek said. "If Tess conducted tests on your daughter's ability to survive a simulated Earth atmosphere, she hasn't shared the results with me."

"As far as the rest of it," Liz said. "That might depend on our Time Lord friend. I'd like to talk to him about all of this."

"Better not to go out looking for him, or anybody," Max decided. "We made sure that he, or anybody else, knows where to find us this evening. And I think that he'll at least check in with us before taking any action."

"Wait a second, I don't understand," Larek said. "This Doctor person - he has some sort of agenda with Tess, beyond just helping you get here?"

"Not an agenda with Tess per se, but with the granilith," Liz said, getting up and walking towards the bed. "He says that it's time lord tech, possibly dangerous, and he might need to dismantle it safely for the good of the galaxy. Is there an en-suite bathroom in here?"

"No, sanitary facilities are shared by the corridor," Larek said. "Which means that somebody can go out on that pretext, if necessary to make contact."

"Well, I don't need to go just yet," Liz decided, heading back. "Pour me some water this time, Max, and we'll see when my bladder says something. In the meantime, Larek, what do you know about the rest of Tess' security arrangements here? Particularly the ones that aren't Granolith-powered?"

#

The Doctor matched his pace to Jim Valenti on their way out of the dining hall. "Meet in my room in ten minutes. Don't bring your charming wife-to-be: I think that we can't gather too many people without our hostess setting off alarm bells."

Jim continued on, not looking over at the Doctor. "That'll be easier if I can tell Amy where else to go."

The Doctor considered that. Rose had said that she'd gather up Isabel, Alex, and Kyle in one of the other rooms to discuss something else, and with four of them, that party was large enough without Amy. She might go and drop in on the drinks being served over at Max and Liz's, or... "Could she go and spend a little time with Tess and not attract any suspicion?"

"Yes, I think so. Tess liked Amy from the very first time they met. But - but is there going to be any danger to her, if Tess figures out what we're up to at the wrong moment?"

"No - at least, I truly don't think so. It's a dangerous universe, but I wouldn't send anybody into a risky situation without reasonable warning."

"Good enough." Jim nodded and turned about to find his fiancee.

It was closer to five minutes that Jim slipped into the room that had been assigned to the Doctor and Rose. The Doctor was already there, pointing his sonic screwdriver at one of the walls, and Michael and Maria were sitting together on the edge of one of the beds, watching him. "Hi, Mister V," Maria offered with a small wave.

"Hello. What are we up to?"

"First, just checking that Tess Harding hasn't bugged the room, and it seems not," the Doctor said, waving his device along the corner moulding, and then turning back to Valenti, looking well satisfied. "And then, we make our plans to dispose of the Granolith."

"It's really got to go, huh?" Michael asked, and let out a silent whistle of air. "Dammit, I was really hoping that it would be the key to kicking Kivar's ass once and for all."

"I'm not a big fan of the idea of using Time Lord artifacts as a weapon," the Doctor said. "Dangerous precedent if nothing else. And I'm afraid that the end of the Kivarian war is not something that we can change to suit our own convenience - there are fixed events in there, that can't be eliminated."

"So we just have to let the fighting take its own course?" Maria asked, making a face.

"I'm afraid so. And that's close to the nub of the problem - Tess can't be left with the Granolith, because she's kept the entire war on hold, without resolving anything. That has to stop as soon as possible. And I don't know if there's any other way to keep the thing out of the hands of those who would misuse it in even worse ways."

"Alright, what's the plan, then?" Michael asked. "Do we need to get the key away from Tess? That could be incredibly difficult, considering..."

"...a) how paranoid she seems to be lately, b) these stun bracelets that we're wearing, c) the fact that she has powers while none of the rest seem to anymore." Maria filled in. "Did I miss anything important?" Michael shook his head, and Jim shrugged.

"In answer to the question, no, I don't think so," the Doctor filled in. "From what I know about the era of Gallifreyan history that the Granolith originated in, I doubt that it would truly have a personalized lock - the crystal that you told me about is probably just a naturally occurring material that will help an Antarian to send commands into the time-space matrix. I can adapt this to interface with the cone." He pulled out the TARDIS key from around his neck.

"Like programming a new remote control," Jim said, and after a moment the Doctor nodded. "But will it still work on the TARDIS, after that?"

"No, not really. But the TARDIS is on voice lock at the moment, so that means that I can open it without the key anyway. Once inside, I can duplicate Rose's key, or 'change the locks' if something happens to hers."

"What else do you need, then?" Maria asked him. "Just a chance to get out to the courtyard?"

"It'd be good if Tess was diverted, so that she didn't have any chance to use her key to interfere," the Doctor decided slowly. "She could probably send the Granolith out into orbit if she tried, and then somebody else might be able to come in and take it."

"Would even Tess me that stupid?" Michael asked. Maria stared at him. "Okay, okay, let's take precautions against it. Send Max to her room, that'll divert her."

"Are you kidding?" Maria shrieked.

"He doesn't have to actually do anything with her, just talk."

"Send Kyle," Maria shot back. "He can do more than just talk - he's on the rebound from Rose anyway."

"Actually, Amy's already gone over to talk with Tess," Jim pointed out.

"Okay, give her a try," Michael said. "And I guess we can make Kyle the backup plan."

"Anything else we need to plan out beforehand?" the Doctor asked. "What's going to happen here once the Granolith is gone? Will somebody be paying Tess a visit soon after word gets out?"

Michael and Maria traded another look. "We'd better get word to Larek. He can probably send armed ships to help reinforce whatever standard defenses Dimares has."

"Good." The Doctor nodded decisively. "There's something else that I was thinking of. For thousands of years, the people of the Antarian sector have thought of the Granolith as a legacy - and even though it's a legacy that they haven't always used wisely, if I'm going to be the man to take it away from them, it seems appropriate to try to turn into a gift with equal potential. I believe that I can create a significant change for the most heavily populated worlds of the sector, and in the process completely discharge the Granolith so that it's no longer any danger, or any use. I put it to you, and through you to your friends - what changes should I enact, for the peoples of Antar?"

For a long moment, the three of them were stunned silent. "I... I'm not sure I can think of anything worthwhile, assuming that I can't wish for peace in our time."

The Doctor shook his head sadly. "Not even the TARDIS can work such a miracle on the living mind, to create peace in the hearts of those who yearn for war. And I don't think I can arrange a finely grained enough change to be certain that the people who want peace get all the power and say-so, at the expense of those who don't."

"We'll pass the question around," Maria promised. "Alex and Liz will probably have some worthwhile thoughts, and maybe Isabel too."

#

"No, Tess doesn't have any guards in the courtyard, watching the Granolith," Larek explained to Jim Valenti and the Doctor. "I don't think that she trusts any of them enough, even though they couldn't really steal it or do anything with it without her key. And she keeps the key on her at all times."

"That's good," the Doctor murmured. Jim opened up the door to his room and let the two of them through, followed by Max. "Are there any precautions at all worth mentioning? Robotic dogs? Killer vines on the courtyard walls?"

Larek looked a little blank, until Max chuckled, and then Larek shook his head, relieved. "There's an automatic surveillance system over many public parts of the residence, including the courtyard, which will notify Tess if unusual activity is detected. But I know where the core processor is kept, and should be able to convince it to turn a blind eye. Using powers to affect and control sophisticated electronic systems has been a favorite application of mine for many years."

"That's it?" Max asked, and Larek nodded. "Okay, you should take Alex with you - he's great with computers. If something goes sideways, he might be able to think of some way to use your powers that never occured to you - or even hack into it from the usual interface components."

"Is that really necessary, Max?" the Doctor asked. "Alex was recommended to me for my own team. It's not just a question of deactivating the Granolith, I want to do something more meaningful than that, and so I need ideas..."

"This is what Maria is briefing Liz, Alex, and Isabel on right now?" Max snapped, and the Doctor nodded. "Then Alex can tell Isabel his ideas before they split up. Having him with Larek can keep us all safe."

The Doctor considered that for a moment, and then nodded. "Then I'll take you as his replacement, Max, if you're not committing yourself to diverting Tess."

"Diverting Tess, as in, what?" A nervous giggle escaped Max. "Whose idea was that?"

"Michael's, and he was only thinking of having you talk to her. Kyle was also mentioned as a possibility, and Amy is laying the groundwork already."

"Umm... I think they should do fine. If I go to Tess' room to talk to her, she might suspect me of an ulterior motive. I'm fine going with you, Doctor."

"Alright, well... it'll be at least another quarter hour before everybody else is in position, I think," Jim said. "Speaking of which, where do I go?"

"I want you close to the courtyard, just in case there's really bad trouble, but not too close," Max suggested. "Larek, any ideas for a pretext?"

"What do you mean, a pretext?" Larek actually scratched his head, near the corner of his eye.

"Something innocuous that they can be doing, or pretending that they're doing, if somebody asks questions," the Doctor explained.

"Oh. There's a Rekcorc corridor nearby - it's a game involving sliding heavy weights across a smooth floor."

"Like Antarian bowling - or perhaps indoor curling," Jim said. "Okay, I'll give it a try - but will I need somebody to play against?"

"Take Michael," Max said. "So, if Liz and Isabel are with us, Doctor?" The Doctor nodded. "That leaves Rose and Maria without assignments, but I don't think they'll be too upset at sitting it out up here, safely out of any danger."

"Okay," Larek said. "I'll go let Alex know about what we've decided."

"And I'll find Michael, and we can get our game started early," Jim said.

"Good," the Doctor said. "Larek, let Isabel and Liz know to come by here when they're ready."

#

Kyle shifted restlessly, and fiddled restlessly with his remaining red and blue chips. For his part of the plan to work, he'd had to find a place to loiter inconspicuously between the Granolith Courtyard and Tess' quarters - which weren't very far away. His job was to act as a lookout, to intercept and divert Tess if it looked as if she was going to catch the Doctor in the middle of his mission to nuke the Granolith - and Tess had obviously taken pains to assign herself rooms close to the courtyard, though they didn't look out directly on that particular view.

Larek had suggested this 'gaming parlour', which fit the requirements very well, Kyle had to admit - aside from the location, there was a reasonable excuse for him to spend time here. Tess had managed to get an Antarian mechanized gaming table set up to deal Blackjack, and one of the household staff had gotten him set up with a tall stack of 'play chips'. Not worth anything, but then, that was probably alright considering how many of them he'd managed to lose.

His mind just wasn't on hitting or staying, never mind the ever-changing combinations of his count and the dealer's up-card. Tess was stuck in his brain, in a manner of speaking.

Did he love her or hate her? "Should I laugh or should I cry?" he mumbled to himself, and wondered what kind of lame-ass song had gotten those words stuck in his head. And if what any part of him felt was love, was it love for a sister, for a really hot and passionate woman, or for a friend? He was certain that he couldn't tell.

"I'm sorry, sir. Do you wish to continue playing? If so, I need to know if you wish a fourth card," the eternally smiling dealer asked him. His lips didn't even move, with the sound just emerging from somewhere deep behind his face.

"Just a sec... I've got thirteen, your up-card is a nine... and somebody's on the move. So no, I don't want to continue playing. You can keep the rest of my chips, buddy." Kyle rose from his chair and slipped out of the parlour as quickly and quietly as he could.

Yes, Tess and Amy were in the hallway, he could make out both of their voices in conversation, probably just one twist out of sight. For a moment, Kyle was upset that Amy wasn't trying to steer Tess away from the courtyard herself, and then remembered that they'd had no way to warn her about that part of the plan without alerting Tess. Kyle's Dad had just told her that she couldn't come with him to speak with the Doctor, and that maybe it would be a good idea for her to go see Tess and catch up.

So Kyle walked up the corridor, turned around, and called out once he'd confirmed visual contact of Tess and Amy. "Hey, Tess - I've been looking for you, actually. Can we talk about unfinished business?"

Tess weighed that for a moment. "Okay, I guess. Amy, you don't mind?"

"No, of course not," Ms DeLuca disclaimed. "I think that Kyle has more of a priority on your time and attention at this point."

"Okay." Tess shifted her head to the side in a 'come on then' gesture that Kyle remembered her using from the first evening that he'd spent in her company, when they went to the library, and Max and Liz followed them, though Kyle hadn't known that at the time. Trying to be casual and un-suspicious, Kyle waved her towards him with his hand, and after letting out a quiet sigh, Tess started down the way to meet him. Without really meaning to, Kyle found himself smiling at her.

"So, just what do you have to tell me, Buddha-boy?" she asked as she drew near. "Or will it be that kind of talk where you just ask me tough questions? God, I guess it's been enough time that I was starting to forget just how hot you look."


	27. Chapter 27

Max, Liz, Isabel, and the Doctor made it out into the Granolith courtyard without any trouble. "No alarms," Max pointed out. "Larek and Alex must have done their bit okay."

"And no sign of Tess yet," Isabel muttered. "But I'm not sure that we can count on Amy and Kyle keeping her distracted for long, especially since Amy doesn't know that's what she's supposed to be doing. So let's take care of this quickly and go home."

"Right, that's my cue," the Doctor muttered, bringing out his little golden TARDIS key and the sonic screwdriver, which he pointed at the key. After a few seconds of that, he pocketed the screwdriver, held up the key towards the Granolith cone, and the Granolith reacted, rising about a foot into the air and pulsing with blue light, the rhythm of it like a slow heartbeat.

"I'm in control," the Doctor said, looking at the others. "And now I need the answers to that question - what use should I put the Granolith's power to, for the benefit of the people of the Antarian sector. It has considerable power over matter, energy, and natural forces, but isn't a subtle enough instrument to work changes over living minds."

There was a momentary pause. "Safety, the elimination of dangerous natural hazards," Isabel said after that moment was done. "Like the mining town that Aunt Shelda told me about in her dream, where the mines gave off poison gas. Can the Granolith make it so that those mines could be worked safely, and rescue the people who've been trapped in stasis for all these years?"

"Good, yeah," Liz agreed. "Shelda thought that the Granolith could help, but couldn't get Royal approval for it to be used."

The Doctor nodded. "Yes, that's a good start."

"And can you extend the idea?" Liz pressed. "I don't think any of us have researched other dangerous hazards of the sector."

"When I put the Granolith into full discharge, it will feed me information about everything within its maximum range," the Doctor explained. "I just need to know what I'm looking for. This is good stuff, anything else?"

"Prosperity," Max suggested. "I - I don't know just what that would be in physical terms - new sources of energy that can be safely tapped, and deposits of rare metals to be mined?"

"The weather," Liz chimed in. "Whatever weather patterns would be most beneficial to farmers, and lead to the most safety for other people - can the Granolith actually adjust the weather on a permanent basis?"

"Probably not with permanent accuracy, but I'm willing to give it a shot," the Doctor said, grinning. "This is getting close to the limit, though. Anybody have just one more notion?"

"Hmm... just one modifier," Max said, after waiting for either of the girls to speak up. "I know that you didn't want to use the Granolith as a direct weapon against Kivar, but it occurred to me - the new sources of energy and raw metals. It'd be a shame if he could tap into many of them easily, because he'd just use them to keep oppressing the rest of the sector."

The Doctor grinned. "I think I can manage a slight bias against the regions he currently controls, Max. Of course, that might have a longer-term effect even after he's deposed. Those lands where Kivar is strongest, after all, those were the heart of the Liaret kingdom, too."

"First we need to get him out," Liz pointed out. "Let's get this done."

"Indeed, let's," the Doctor decided. "I think that all three of you can help - four heads are better than one, after all. I'll bring you each into the connection to the Granolith, and you can help look for the things that you suggested."

"Oh, great, so I'm stuck trying to figure out the weather problem?" Liz complained, and Max made a silly face at her, crossing his eyes.

"Do it now, Doctor," Isabel called out, and the Doctor gestured with the Granolith key. As quick as a blink, Liz's awareness spread across distant stars and planets. So many planets and moons, dozens with people of the Antarian species living on them - Dimares itself, and Antar and Kaalto and the other four from the Summit, and smaller colonies - and it was her job to improve the weather for each of them, she knew.

As the Doctor had said, she had information - the Granolith could provide her with that - information from the largest sweep of the air and cloud patterns to how each person, and herd animal, and plant felt about the weather and wanted from it. She could see how the climate had changed over time, as well, going back hundreds of years, and how the possible future would be affected by any possible change that she might make.

But Liz found her mind paralyzed - no matter what choice she took, there seemed to be a tradeoff - provide more summer rains for the fruit growers here, and the tour operators in the nearby cities would have a hard time earning a living, while the forests a quarter of the way around the planet would have to cope with drought. More sunshine in the corn fields of Gevinor would mean a harsher winter for the wooly mammal herders.

But the energy of the Granolith was screaming at her, demanding to be put to use, and Liz started by cheating on her mandate. Over many desolate moons and inhospitable planets like Kaalto, the Antarians themselves had set up artificial atmospheres, underground or domed living space, and the raw materials to build more of the same were generally available on hand. Wherever she could, Liz constructed more sealed-in facilities of the same general sort as what had already been built, trying not to overbuild too much compared to the capacity that was already there.

These new undercover cities would not be suitable for moving in immediately - Liz didn't have quite the finesse to provide everything that would be needed for the life support machinery, and in any event it would be a waste of energy without somebody there to make use of it. She tried to provide as many of the requirements as she could, though, and hoped that Max would think of providing ready energy sources next to her new developments.

Then, she turned her attention back to the more complicated subject of climate patterns on the full-ecosphere worlds, and to her surprise found that as she focused on a particular weather planet, subtle changes were already taking place. She wasn't sure if it was her subconscious mind taking the hard decisions, or if the Doctor was intervening, digesting the information she provided him and picking priorities. Maybe somehow, in some strange level, it was being left up to the minds of the people and creatures who would be most affected by the changes.

And as that finished, the link broke apart and Liz found herself falling into Max's arms, weeping uncontrollably for the beauty of the sector that she had perceived for that one great moment and could never see in the same way again, crying over the pain and suffering that had been inflicted upon the few for the good of the many.

"Look!" Max breathed, still holding her tight. Her eyes streaming, Liz turned her head, and saw the Granolith cone crash down onto its point, then fall on a side and roll a bit away from them. Then it seemed to collapse, like a huge balloon with half the air let out of it, and finally stopped as a lumpy shape spread over a patch of the courtyard stones. Max stepped toward it, and Liz followed him awkwardly, not letting go. They both reached down as one, to touch the surface, and the surface was like a golf ball's, dimpled with little irregularities and cool.

"Max," somebody breathed from behind her, and sobbed out loud. "What the hell have you done?"

#

"Okay, they're in the courtyard," Alex reported, looking out the little window. "No alarms?"

"Not a one," Larek confirmed. "So, what of you, when this is all over, Mister Whitman?"

"Well, I'm liable to follow Isabel wherever she leads me, but I'm really looking forward to going to college - back on Earth," he explained. "Not that I don't think that an education on Rahlicx or somewhere else in the area wouldn't be a fascinating thing, but - Earth is my home, and I'm not ready to give it up for long yet. Do you understand?"

"Yes, I do - and that actually reminds me of a few things that I should take care of while I'm here," Larek said, stepping over towards the computer console. "Do you think that Max and Liz are ready to give up Earth for good, if they need to?"

"Umm, I don't know... I guess it depends on what's at stake," Alex mumbled. "Do you have a hypothetical in mind?"

"Not so hypothetical, I'm afraid. Max said that he wanted to be with his daughter, and asked if I knew if she could live on Earth."

"Oh, right, I get it." Alex thought about that. "Yeah, Max is probably very serious about that, he'll do whatever he needs to. And Liz - well, she's not about to give him up, either. It's not fair to ask him to give up everything that she cares about to follow him, though I think she'd do it if she absolutely had no other choice but to leave him forever. But it's not like that. Liz could make herself a new home somewhere out here, like going with you if you'll have them, sir. And she'd probably love the chance to learn more about - well, about everything that an alien planet might have to teach her."

"That's good," Larek said. "Okay, that's one thing taken care of. Now, to see if Tess really did have little Ardra tested for Earth air quality."

"What did you take care of?" Alex asked him.

"Something that might be very important once the Granolith isn't here anymore."

Alex waited, and shrugged when it seemed that Larek wasn't going to give him any more of an answer yet.

#

"Okay, you had something to say, Buddha Boy," Tess pointed out, clearing her throat and staring at Kyle over the small conference table. "Speak your piece."

"Why - why did you do it, Tess?" Kyle found himself blurting out.

"Oh, no. Nuh-uh, I'm not falling for that one." Tess shook her head, and Kyle was very aware of the changes in her choice of hairstyle over the years that she'd lived since leaving Earth. Her golden locks were no longer a riotous mass of curls, nor the pigtails or shoulder-length straight 'do that she'd occasionally taken on for a change, but a sort of a wispy bob that didn't quite extend to the bottom of her neck, and left two thick streams falling down in front of each ear. "You don't really want to hear me making excuses for my crimes, do you, Kyle? Or if you do, it's only so that you can turn around and accuse me of not accepting responsibility for my choices."

"'Others have excuses, but I have my reasons why,'" Kyle quoted softly. "Do you remember a jump or a leap, or just quiet steps away from the path? Were you playing a role from the start, stumbling through the lines? Were you distracted by your own dreams?"

"What the heck are you talking about, Kyle?" Tess exclaimed before Kyle could come out with another lyric from the song.

"Just - maybe the difference between a reason is more in intention and point of view than substance," he explained lamely. "If you want to take responsibility for your crimes, then that's honorable, but I'm curious about your motives anyway. I assume that you did have some motivation for what you did, and weren't just acting out for the sake of being bad - though that's a motivation of a sort, I guess."

Tess shook her head slightly. "It's hard for me to get back in touch with those bad ol' days in Roswell. I've spent a long time trying to put that road behind me. But very generally... I don't want to keep blaming Ed for everything, but it's hard to appreciate just how much growing up with him turned me around, since none of you were there. I like to think that I've gotten my act partway together since I got here. But anyway, once it was completely clear to me that nothing would keep Max and Liz apart for long, becoming the mother to his first-born and splitting town didn't seem like such a bad idea."

"But you tried to trick Max into leaving in the Granolith with you," Kyle said, shaking his head just a little so as to keep an intense stare up on Tess.

"I let him make his own choice - and I'd have bet money that if Max did come, he'd let Liz tag along too, except that I didn't really want him to hear that idea through the grapevine. It surprised me that neither of them ever floated the idea by me."

"Okay," Kyle said. "So - um, I'm not really sure what to ask next at this point."

"I'm so blessed to have Ardra in my life," Tess muttered. "Even though some of the choices I made aren't ones that I can really be proud of, I don't have many regrets. I do wish that I could have gotten here without hurting Alex, though."

"You should tell him so," Kyle told her. "I think he'd like to hear it from you, and won't give you a particularly hard time about apologizing."

"Well, thanks," Tess said.

"And what about me?" Kyle asked. "Did you mean what you told me on prom night? Do you really love me, Tess, and if so, what am I to you?"

"I'm not sure," Tess muttered. "There hasn't been anyone else that I could open up my heart to since I got here, and when I look back on my life in Roswell, what the two of us never quite made up our minds to take hold of still looks a lot more real than my dreams about happily ever after with Max. But is that enough? If I really loved you, would any of that have kept us apart? And - and could you ever love me, after what you saw me do?"

"I... I'm not sure either, Tess," Kyle said. "I'm glad to hear that your answer wasn't 'no' - I can tell you that much."

Tess smiled - and then the smile seemed to freeze and crack on her face, and something furious shone through her eyes. "Were you a part of this?" she screamed at him. "Was this your part in the plan, to keep me occupied until it's too late?"

"Well, if you want to get technical, but..." Kyle muttered. That was as far as he got. Standing up from her chair, Tess gestured backhand in the air, and an invisible giant kicked Kyle into the wall. As the Queen of all Dimares stormed out of the room, Kyle managed to mumble, "Guys, she's on the way." And then he blacked out.

#

"Come on, Tess, let's not have any trouble," Michael said, stepping up behind Tess and putting his hand on her upper arm, not gripping that hard. A remote control was in her hand so suddenly that he realized she must have called it from her pocket with a power of telekinesis. She let out an evil little chuckle before hitting about half of the buttons with her thumb, one after another.

This had no effect on anybody.

"Alex must have cut these little bangles off at the source," Isabel pointed out to Tess, lifting up her stun bracelet and shaking her hand back and forth a little. "I suggested that to him before we split up."

"And to answer your question, Tess, this isn't my doing, not primarily," Max told her. "The Time Lord has taken dominion of his own back. The Granolith was a Galifreyan relic; he's convinced me of the truth of that now. And a dangerous one, that you were using to upset the path of history. That power has been redirected permanently."

"And what of Kivar, when he comes here for the reckoning?" Tess wailed. "He'll come here for the Granolith, now that the protective field is down. No way will he ever take the word of any of us that it's been destroyed, and he won't just leave once he's satisfied about that anyway."

"I think that we'll have somebody else's protection by then, as it happens."

"Not that I'd let Kivar stop me from doing the right thing either," the Doctor put in.

"So what happens now? Do I face the Time Lord's judgment?" Tess spat.

"I'm no magistrate, just a wanderer, though I try to fix what's wrong when I have a chance," the Doctor said. "Max? What's your judgment?"

Max looked over at Liz, then Isabel, and Michael, and Jim Valenti, who was standing on Tess' other side to bracket her. "Tess, you're not going to be in charge here for long, not without the Granolith. I suggest that you don't try to make the transition difficult."

"Just tell me who's coming here first," Tess said with a sigh. "Did Larek call for his cruisers?" Max nodded silently. "Okay, then we should probably get inside while we wait for them, and see what there is to talk about now." Tess turned towards the doorway that she had come out of, and Michael started to circle around her, but Jim Valenti shook his head, so Michael just spun about in place and kept pace wit Tess as she started to walk.

Then Tess' mouth dropped open and she tried to rush ahead, but Jim grabbed her by the arm. "No, you don't understand!" she exclaimed. "It's Kyle, I just realized. I didn't really mean to hurt him - but I guess I've got some work to do on my temper. We need to check that he's okay!"

#

"Kyle, are you okay?"

Kyle cracked an eye open. "Not particularly, but I'll live and I'm not sure any bones are broken." He smiled slightly to see Rose and Maria smiling down on him, and realized from the soft sensation under him that they must have managed to carry him onto a couch or something similar. "Why are you here?"

"Rose could tell that you were in trouble," Maria said.

"I'm not o sure that's the right phrase," Rose complained. "Yes, I had a worrying feeling, and you were in trouble, Kyle, but - well, I guess the important thing is that we're here, and you're going to be okay. What happened?"

"Tess happened," Maria said, and Kyle nodded.

"Oh." Rose swallowed with a bit of a 'gulp' sound. "I guess I didn't expect that it would be so dangerous, for Kyle to distract her."

"Why, because Tess looks so cute and petite that you can't believe that she's dangerous?" Maria asked.

"No - because she's in love with him," Rose said, and Maria was speechless at that little proclamation.

"Yes - I think that deep down, she is," Kyle muttered. "That's why it was dangerous - a woman scorned and all that. She thought that I was only interested in distracting her. Which reminds me - did the Granolith get trashed okay?"

"No idea," Maria said, and Rose shook her head too. "Well then... is there anything I can get to help you feel better, Kyle?"

Before Kyle could think of an answer, there was a clatter of footsteps and low voices coming up the corridor, and soon the room was crowded - Tess was there, Michael and Jim Valenti shadowing her every step, the Doctor and Max and Liz and Isabel. The basic fact of their success in redirecting the Granolith energy was quickly conveyed, and Tess managed a self-conscious apology to Kyle for lashing out at him.

"Once is not the end of the moon, Tess," he managed to ay. "But it can't go on this way. I'm not going to stick around in a dysfunctionally abusive relationship." Tess' eyes went up in surprise, and Kyle chuckled to himself.

#

"Larek, there you are!" Max exclaimed, as the Rahlicx leader appeared by the door, and Isabel rushed over to give Alex a big enthusiastic embrace. "There's one more thing I wanted to ask you."

"Be careful, Max Evans," Larek laughed. "By my reckoning, you're somewhat in debt for favors already rendered."

"Yes, I do realize that," Max agreed, and stepped back out into the hallway, with Larek following. "This is important, though. I - on earth, there's a special kind of judge, who rules in matters of family law, such as who gets custody of children when their biological parents separate."

Larek let out a soft hooting sound. "Yes, we have such magistrates in this sector as well. Are you asking me to find such a judge, to rule on little Ardra's fate?"

"I was hoping that you would serve as judge yourself," Max admitted. "I have seen that you love my daughter yourself, and that you're still friends with Tess, despite not agreeing with all her choices. If you feel that you must recuse yourself due to the conflicts of interest, then I'd appreciate a recommendation of someone else who will judge fairly, unswayed by any undue influence."

Larek considered this for a moment. "Perhaps I had better take care of it myself. Whatever the final judgment, Tess would respect it more coming from me. But you must realize that I cannot guarantee that you'll be pleased with my ruling. Then again, if that was your most pressing concern, you probably wouldn't have asked for a judge in the first place."

Max smiled tightly. "I know what I want, but you must rule based on what's in Ardra's best interests."

"Of course." Larek stepped back into the room, and cleared his throat. "I have been called upon to serve as a Magistrate here, and accepted the mandate. I will need to interview all here, and will ask most to submit to my power to view their minds. You are exempt from that requirement, Mister Time Lord, since I suspect there are things in your brain that might drive any non-Gallifreyan mad."

"Well, now that you mention it," the Doctor muttered, and trailed off. Liz shot an intent, sidelong look over at Max, but he was focused on Larek with perfectly calm concern.

"Who goes first?" Tess asked.

Larek considered the entire group. "Miss Rose Tyler, you are summoned to testify," he said. "I imagine that we can find some suitable place to handle the interview in comfort and privacy?"

"What, me first?" Rose exclaimed, looking up. "I mean, sir, I don't object to getting subpoenaed and all, but I'm hardly involved in this."

"That's why you're first," Larek said. "I cannot think of any better way of getting involved in such a thorny problem than starting with the witnesses who are most peripheral to it, and working my way inward to the principals. I will only ask you for general character references on your new friends, and such things. Come on."

"All right." Rose shot the Doctor a look as Larek waved her out the door. "If I don't come back when he does, come after me."

"You can count on me," The Doctor said with a little smile, but he didn't look worried.

#

"Wow, how much longer is this going to take?" Maria asked as she came into the dining room where most of the Roswellian teens were snacking restlessly as they waited. She'd seen Isabel being conducted in for her interview as she was led away - Rahlicx troops and functionaries had landed on the planet before she'd been called in to testify, and Larek had apparently taken very little time out of his new family court duties to get them organized, but they were certainly keeping things organized. Impulsively, she draped herself in Michael's lap instead of pulling up a chair next to him, and he reacted by wrapping an arm around Maria's waist and kissing her neck.

"Well, once Isabel's finished, he's still got Kyle, Liz, Max, and Tess to interview, and I think that he's been taking longer and longer as he goes down his list," Alex pointed out. "It might be a good idea for somebody to ask for a recess for the night."

"Yeah," Max said. "Though I had hoped to get this whole thing settled sooner. It does make me feel better that Larek is taking the whole deal so uber-seriously, on some level. Even if he rules against me, or decides on some sort of joint custody - I know that that's because it's what's best for Ardra." He turned to Maria. "Do you mind if I ask you what Larek talked to you about?"

"Yeah, sure." Maria squealed softly as Michael nibbled on her ear, and eventually pushed away from him and settled into her own seat. "There was a lot that he covered, just out loud - how long I've known Liz, what it was like when I found out about you guys, if there was anything that Tess had done that I couldn't forgive her for, what I'd think about the idea of living on some alien planet, or what it's been like dating Michael and keeping his secret on Earth."

"Yeah, he covered most of the same stuff with me," Alex said. "I think that among other things, he's trying to figure out if we believe that Max is capable of starting all over on a new world, if that's what he needs to do for Ardra's sake."

"That makes some sense," Michael muttered.

"Say, where's Liz?" Maria asked Max.

Max jumped a little guiltily and looked around the room. "She said that she wouldn't be gone for long - I guess I assumed she was using the washroom."

"Hmm." Maria reached out and nibbled on a pre-sliced piece of triangular Darva bread.

"No, I think that she's gone to fetch a surprise," Alex said, and pointed to the far door to the room. Liz had changed into a long clingy red gown that left her shoulders bare, and she was carrying a little girl carefully in her arms. Behind her, Tess sulked along, wearing a flower patterned t-shirt and sweat pants instead of her Queenly finery.

"Hi, Ardra," Max said, waving at her. "Liz, did you go to bring her to visit with me?" Liz nodded. "Thank you. I don't know why I didn't think of spending some quality time myself."

"You've had a lot going on, but yeah, it's a good thought," Maria agreed.

"Hi, Daddy," Ardra said, matching his wave. "You're my Daddy, right?"

"Yes, yes I am," he said, smiling as Liz let Ardra down into a chair near Max's. "I'm sorry that I haven't talked to you much since we got here, but there was other important stuff happening, and..."

"Are you going to take me away from Mommy? Make me leave home?"

Several people at the table shot serious looks over at Tess, who just shrugged. "Well - in a way, Ardra," Max said, and took a breath. "I've asked Larek - you know him, right? I've asked him to decide what's best for you, if you should stay here with your Mommy or maybe go somewhere else with me? I know that your Mommy loves you very much, and I love you very much, my girl, even if you don't know me very well yet. But - but your Mommy and I don't love each other that much, and though I want to be a big part of your life, if I was living here with your Mommy, I'm worried that we'd get into big arguments about things like bedtime and dinner and what you should be learning in school, and that's not good for little girls to be around."

Ardra stared back at Max for a long time. "Okay," she said finally. "Is Larek going to ask me who I want to live with?"

Max, Liz, and Maria exchanged glances, and Liz shrugged. "Yes, I'm sure that he will," Max told Ardra. "He might not go along with whatever you say, but I'm sure that he'll want to know."

"Okay. So... do you know any good games, Daddy?"

Max laughed. "Did your Mommy ever play tic-tac-toe with you?" Ardra shook her head. "Okay, here we go." Max waved his hand to make the hashmark board on the tablecloth, and explained briefly the rules about x's and o's, three in a row up and down, side to side, or at an angle. "Do you want to be X and play first?"

"Sure," Ardra said, and yawned before passing her palm over the board and marking a bright green X in the center. "Sorry, I'm still a bit sleepy."

"Is it nearly your bedtime, Ardra?" Michael asked.

"It's just after my wake-up time," she said.

"Oh, wow, we've been up all night?" Maria asked.

"We did have a little unexpected nap courtesy of Tess when we arrived," Liz put in. "And probably a bit of a time zone issue, courtesy of the TARDIS. But I think that it's time for me to go to bed."

"Me too," Kyle said. "Maybe if we're both missing, Larek will put a halt to the interviews for a while. I think that you and I are next on the list."

"I think that I'm going to stay up, at least long enough to play a few more games," Max said, and Liz kissed the hair falling over his temple.

"Okay, don't tire yourself out too much though, Daddy," she advised, and headed off.

#

"Thank you everybody for your patience," Larek said the next evening, sitting on Tess' throne, though he'd taken pains to disclaim that he wasn't thereby exerting a permanent sovereign claim on Dimares. "I've interviewed all of the interested parties, and stand prepared to rule on the case of the parental custody for Ardra Harding-Evans." Ardra was sitting on Tess' lap, but in exchange she had suffered Larek's guards to put one of the shock-bracelets on her own arm, just to reassure everybody that she wasn't going to try anything foolish if the ruling went against her.

"Tess Harding - please stand forward," Larek intoned, and Tess made a production out of getting Ardra to her feet first, and Kyle reached out to hold the little girl's hand. Tess only stood as far away from her daughter as she could help while obeying the literal sense of Larek's directive.

"As much as I know that you love your daughter, I regret to say that I have found that you are not, at this time, a safe and fit parent for Ardra, and cannot thus allow you to retain primary custody. If you insist, I will grant maternal visitation rights, however, I strongly urge you to consider a slightly different path."

"Tess, the issues that are complicating your relationship to Ardra have their roots in your own childhood, and I suspect that they won't be resolved until you return to Earth with the intention of re-opening your heart to true love and exorcising those demons. Since, as you have determined for yourself, Ardra cannot safely come to planet Earth yet, I will not consider this choice to be abandoning your child, simply doing what you must to become a better mother, and will weigh it in your favor if I am ever called upon to review these judgments in the future."

Tess let out a sigh, and turned back to Kyle, who smiled and gave her a thumbs up. Tess giggled and made a silly wave of her own, which Ardra copied.

"Since, if you return to Earth aboard the TARDIS, there will be no easy way to return on your own, I will provide a means of communication and promise to send transportation when I can. If you return into Earth's relative past, you will probably need to not message me for several years, to avoid changing my own timeline."

"Thanks," Tess said, smiling with relief."

"That's all, Tess. Max Evans, Liz Parker, please stand forward."

Tess took her seat, and Max and Liz stood together close to Larek's seat of judgment, holding hands and smiling.

"Max, as you can probably guess, I am prepared to name you primary custodial parent for Ardra, confident that you understand the responsibility that this role entails. Since, as I have said, she cannot breathe the Earth's atmosphere; this ruling is contingent on your coming to live on some planet of the Antarian peoples. Do you understand and accept these terms?"

"Yes, I do," Max said.

"Liz - you are not Ardra's relative by genetics, but I believe in the value of a strong mother figure as well as a father when raising a child, and you would seem to be the obvious candidate by the circumstances. I believe that you're prepared for the responsibilities and choices that you'll be faced with in helping Max raise Ardra, but please tell me now for the record if you are prepared to stand as Ardra's adopted mother."

Liz took a breath, looked over her shoulder at the little girl in question, and then back to Larek. "Yes, I am."

"Very good. And, though I cannot require it of either of you in my capacity as family court judge, I will say for the record; Max, Liz, it would please me very much to officiate at your wedding ceremony, and the sooner, in general, the better."

Maria and Isabel went 'sheesh' from the audience. Max blushed, and Liz shook her head a little in frustration. "Okay, somewhat against better judgment at the moment, I will ask," Max said, and turned to Liz. "Liz Parker, I love you, and I absolutely do want you by my side as I raise my daughter - and to have more children with you, when you're ready. Will you join your heart with mine formally in marriage?"

Liz took a breath. "Yes - but not anytime quite that soon. Being engaged is enough to get used to, on top of everything else."

"I can live with that," Larek cracked. "That's all for now, Max, Liz. Isabel Evans, Alex Whitman, Maria DeLuca, Michael Guerin, stand forward."

The four named teenagers took the places out in front of the throne, most of them with puzzled expressions, though Alex had a small, worried smile on his face.

"Max and Liz will not be able to raise a daughter themselves," Larek said bluntly. "Nobody can. All parents need a support system, and though I'm sure they will make great friends wherever they choose to live, the four of you have been their closest support system, and they yours, for a long time. Will any of you commit to emigrating to the Antar cluster in order to be with the new family that will be formed?"

There was a quiet, awkward moment in response to Larek's words. All four of them exchanged a series of glances, and Maria whispered Michael's name as a question.

Michael nodded, and raised his arm as if Larek was a teacher. "Yeah, we'll step up and be the next door neighbors, the honorary uncle and aunt. They do need somebody, and the two of us - I can find a place somewhere new at least as easily as I could back home. Alex, Isabel, you guys have great lives full of promise waiting for you back on Earth. You shouldn't have to give those up."

"Okay, yeah." Isabel turned and rushed at Max, giving him a surprisingly tight hug. "It's going to be weird not seeing you every day for a while, but this is where you've gotta be, and Alex and I do need to go back. Maybe we can ride the Rahlicx ship back... but - wait a second, if you're going to be staying in this time frame, then when I see you in three years or whenever, you'll only be a few months older."

"Yeah, don't hate us too much for it," Liz said, hugging Isabel in turn.

The mood of the big judicial pronouncements from Larek broke down into a bunch of tearful exclamations and embraces at that point, even though, as Tess pointed out, nobody had to leave Dimares just yet.


	28. Chapter 28

"I have to say, I don't see the allure of Kaalto township," Larek said as they walked towards the courtyard. "True, I've only been there on inspection tours, but truly - the planet is a backwater dump - a crystal mining town. Please, Max, just come to my court for a week or two, see how well you like it. Or I can arrange safe passage to Vrelayan - Queen Alinda is still living in hiding there, along with her family and most of the rebel leaders. I know that she'd love to meet you all."

Max hesitated, and Michael cleared his throat awkwardly. Max gestured to Michael that he should feel free to speak up, and after a moment, Michael did. "Maybe the fact that it's a backwater, by Antarian standards, will make it easier for us to adjust to living on Kaalto," Michael said. "It seemed like a really decent place to me, when we went to do our research."

"And don't forget," Max added. "Like all the other places where we were able to concentrate the Granilith's power, Kaalto is poised to become a boom town. Ninety percent increase in housing, thanks to the new habitats that Liz was able to put up, and I was able to seed some new energy sources and mineral wealth into the area as well."

Larek considered this. "So you've thought this through, and you're sure about your choice?"

"We'll make this our first choice," Max confirmed. "There's no reason it has to lock us in permanently, though, is there? You said that there are regular starships going from Rahlicx to Kaalto, so I have to assume that they make the trip back too. We'll be sure to come visit after getting settled in, if nothing else."

"I look forward to it," Larek said, and without much warning, he threw his arms around Max in a brotherly embrace. Max reached around somewhat awkwardly to pat the older alien on the back, but he did feel touched as well as surprised.

"So," Michael said, once the manly hugging was over. "What are the travel plans looking like, Max? Is the Doctor dropping us off on the way back to Earth?"

"Not so far as we've worked it out," Max muttered. "For one thing, I think all four of us would want to pack a little more for an open-ended stay on Kaalto than a quick tour of the Antarian sector."

"Oh, right," Michael muttered. "I can grab some stuff from the apartment, yeah, and maybe even clean the rest out, let the landlord know that he can rent it out again. But what if your folks catch you packing, or Liz's catch hers?"

"We're going to let them know that we're leaving home," Maxmuttered. "It'll be a horrible scene, I know, but it's something that I have to do. I won't let them stop me from going, but I have to tell them myself, face to face."

"Brave call, man," Michael muttered.

"I'd expect nothing less," Larek put in.

"Will you need any moral support?" Michael asked Max.

Max considered that for a moment. "Not sure if you'll be needed there, man. The plan was already for Liz and Isabel to be around, and I don't want the folks to feel like they're being ganged up on. Plus - cleaning out that place of yours is going to take a while."

Michael nodded in agreement with that and followed as Larek opened the courtyard doors. All three of them considered the pocket destroyer that would be taking Larek back to Rahlicx once his business on Dimares moon was done, and the tiny blue phone booth standing not far from the larger ship's landing gear.

"Oh, how soon can you spare a ship to go visit Earth?" Max asked Larek.

The Autarch of Rahlicx grinned and chuckled softly. "It's already on its way - should be able to land within five weeks, our time. I figure that there'll be at least a few passengers ready to go for a ride."

"You know, Max," Michael muttered. "We could all stay on Earth for those few years, and you could come back to Ardra when that ship arrives. I mean, I know it'll be a few months for her, but Larek could find somebody to take care of her, and..."

Larek turned away slightly, and Max cut Michael off. "No. Not just because of two and a half months, her time, either. I wouldn't walk away from her for three years in my life, even if it were just a few seconds of hers, or less. I'm young to take on the responsibilities of a father, but I lost Ardra for too long, and I'm ready to be there for her." He took a deep breath. "But you and Maria could change your mind, and go the long way around. Meet us in two and a half months, our time. I don't think Liz would mind."

Michael considered. "I'll ask Maria. But my notion is no - if you guys are going to be staying on Kaalto now, then I'll be there right with you."

"That's good, thanks." Max muttered, and put his hand gently on Michael's shoulder.

#

Liz, Maria, Isabel, and Ardra were in the middle of a tea party when Liz noticed that Tess and Kyle had entered the playroom and were watching from next to the door, hand in hand. She waved them over to join the fun, and when Tess shook her head, Liz excused herself, and went over to talk to the pair.

"So, have you made your decision, Tess?" Liz asked. "Kaalto's open to you, if you can't leave your daughter behind yet."

Tess gazed intently at Ardra as she poured for Maria. "No, I'm just strong enough to walk away from her now, and just wise enough to see that it's the right thing to do, for her good and for mine."

"Shouldn't there be something about serenity in there too?" Kyle asked. "And accepting the things that you cannot change?"

"She's got that too," Liz decided. There were a lot of things in Tess' life that she desperately wanted to change. Everybody around her could tell that much. But she'd stopped fighting the inevitable, and that was the hardest and best thing that she could do to stop her circumstances from getting worse. "So, it's back to Roswell?"

"To start with, yeah." Tess nodded determinedly. "I'll probably have to keep a very low profile to avoid attracting attention, since I've changed a lot in just a few months of Earth time. But Kyle still needs to graduate."

"And then?" Liz prompted.

"We hit the road, try to find out where Tess needs to be to fight her demons," Kyle said. "Probably a lot of them are on the East coast, wherever she lived with Ed while growing up."

"Good hunting, to both of you," Liz muttered. She wasn't entirely sure it would be that easy to sort through Tess' personal issues, but knew that expressing support would be of much more use to Kyle than voicing her doubts out loud.

"Thanks," Tess said.

"Mommy!" Ardra called out. "You've gotta come here and join in the fun."

Tess hesitated, but when Liz held out her hand, Tess took it, and suffered herself to be led to the tea party, where she could spend a bit more time with Ardra before having to say goodbye.

#

"So, what do you think?" the Doctor asked Rose, idly turning his sonic on and just waving it in the air, then out the courtyard window towards the TARDIS.

"About what?" Rose shot back. "Your screwdriver? The TARDIS?"

"Our adventure with the Roswell aliens," the Doctor prompted. "Looks as if it's wrapping up pretty soon. And by the way, thank you very much for suggesting it. I've known about these kids for some time, as you might have guessed, but didn't realize that there was anything that needed doing so badly."

"Well, you're welcome," Rose said, making a little bow. "I find it a bit hard to think about the Granolith being so dangerous as all that, but I'm glad that we were able to unite Max with Ardra, and teach the hybrid teenagers about their Antarian history."

"At least as important as saving the galaxy from nebulous danger, any day," the Doctor said with a little chuckle. "What about you and Kyle?"

"Kyle was fun, but he's spoken for, not that he realized it when we set off," Rose said. "I guess I need to keep looking for somebody else, somebody who's got room in his heart for me." She stared meaningfully, right in the Doctor's eyes.

The Doctor quirked his mouth slightly, then turned away. "Fair enough. Where do you want to go next?"

"Well, probably it's time to go visit Mum again. After all of this business about the importance of family, of parents and children, how could I not?"

"Sure. London in the late summer of 2006. I can manage that."

Rose just nodded without saying a word.

#

"I'm not asking either of you for your permission," Liz insisted, squeezing Max's fingers in hers tighter. "I know that I'm not explaining much, but I don't intend to let either of you stop us from doing what we've decided to do. But I wanted to tell you goodbye like this, until we should meet again."

Liz's mother looked shell-shocked, and her father scanned the room, trying to find an ally that he could appeal to. Somewhat desperately he fixed on Liz's best friend. "Maria, I know that you've always been... a free spirit. But are you really going along with this insanity?"

"It's not insane, Mister Parker," Maria told him. "There's just things going on here that would be very hard for you to believe. But no matter what, try to trust in me - we're going to take very good care of each other, and we'll come back home to Roswell when we can."

Mrs Parker stood up. "I guess we'll have to be content with that for the time being." She opened up her arms for a hug, and Liz rushed forward into the embrace. "Remember always that you have a place here, and I'll be counting down the days."

"It may be a while, mom," Liz whispered back. "But I won't stay away from home forever."

When that hug was over, Liz's father took his turn, and he wished Maria and Max a safe trip.

#

"Daddy!" Ardra exclaimed as Max and Liz stepped back inside the TARDIS.

"Wait a second," Max cautioned as Ardra started to hurry across the control room to greet him. She came to a stop, a puzzled frown on her face, and Max carefully closed the TARDIS doors behind Michael and Maria, who had followed them inside, and then crossed the distance to his daughter himself. "Sorry, honey, but the air out there could make you sick, and I don't want to take any chances with my little girl."

"I already thought of that, Max," the Doctor said. "There's a partially gastight force field across the doorway. Didn't you feel anything when you stepped across?"

"Actually, I did," Liz muttered. "It took my breath away, literally. How deep down the respiratory system would it pump out?"

"Oh, I'm not sure," the Doctor muttered. "Probably not any further than your throat - it's not really meant for flushing out your lungs, just for keeping out leekage around the edges of the doorway, or if somebody keeps the doors open by accident."

"Well, thank you," Max said, and noticed that the control room was quickly filling up with other Roswellians. "So, I guess this is the last goodbye."

"No, that's when the Doctor and I take our leave from you on Kaalto," Rose pointed out. "But this one is a more bittersweet goodbye."

"You got that right," Isabel said, hugging Max, and then Michael. "Roswell just won't be the same without you guys."

"I wish I could take care of Ardra and stay there," Max said to her.

"I know." Isabel brushed angrily at the wet spots that were starting to spread down her cheeks.

Once all the goodbyes had been said once, and it looked as if Isabel was about to hug Max again, Kyle and Jim took charge of leading everybody who would be staying on Earth back out of the TARDIS. There was a silent moment once the door closed, and then the Doctor started to adjust the Time Vortex controls.

"Back to Kaalto township," he pointed out. "This time, matching the time of arrival to on local day after we left Dimares moon."

"I hope that was enough time for Larek to have made the arrangements with his local representatives."

"Larek's pretty on the ball," Maria pointed out. "I don't think we'll have any problems."

#

There weren't any particular problems in getting settled in for the long term on Kaalto, though moving all the luggage out of the TARDIS and into their new rooms did take some time. Once that was finished, an expectant silence gathered.

"Well met, Max Evans of Roswell and Antar," the Doctor said, executing a flamboyant half-bow. "I'm glad I got an opportunity to spend time with all of you and your friends. Thank you very much for your assistance in disposing of the Granolith, and if we should meet again, I will be well disposed to do you and yours a favor."

"Are you sure about that?" Liz asked. "I mean, it'd be easy to argue that we're the ones who are in your debt, for all your help and the rides that you've given us."

"After experiencing the influence of the Granolith, I'm not sure," the Doctor said. "Perhaps we should say that we've exchanged favors - the kind of exchange that isn't a one for one calculus, each side cancelling the other out and leaving nothing left, but the circular kind that leaves a lasting bond behind in both directions."

"Sounds good to me," Maria said. "Well, you're welcome to stay and enjoy our hospitality for the evening."

The Doctor and Rose traded glances. "No, I think that we've got somewhere else to be," Rose said. "London, in particular."

"And it's time for the four of you to start taking care of yourselves here," the Doctor said.

"Well, goodbye, and thank you once again," Max said, coming forward to shake hands in farewell. Once the final formalities were complete, Rose and the Doctor disappeared into the TARDIS, which faded out, vworping until there was no trace of it left.

"What does that mean, taking care of ourselves?" Michael muttered.

"Dealing with the language gap, maybe," Liz pointed out. "As long as the TARDIS was sitting here, we were within its translation field. I wonder how much English the Kaaltan computers know?"

"Oh, boy," Max muttered, and hurried back into the living room that the five of them were sharing. "Computer, voice response? Identify Max Evans."

There was a long pause. "Voice response online in English," a computer voice announced. "Please be patient in the event of vocabulary issues - language database is rated at a one thousand word limit."

"We'll see what we can do about that," Liz said with a smile.

"Interstellar voice message waiting for you, Max Evans," the computer continued on.

"Really?" Max looked around at the others. "Play message."

"Hello, Max?" Isabel's voice sounded from the furthest corners of the room. "Alex said that he thought you'd be arriving on Kaalto soon, and we've told them to not let anybody else hear this message until you're there.

"It's weird to think that for you, it's only been a few hours or so since you left us. It's groundhog day today - Alex and I both went to school on the east coast. And - and we've been engaged since New Year's Eve!"

"Call back and let us know what Larek's been able to work out about visiting. Tess keeps talking about how much she misses Ardra."

Liz and Maria started to laugh first, which set the others off. "Don't worry about getting back to her yet," Liz whispered to Max, pressing her body against his. "We've got a few other priorities to take care of first."


End file.
